Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Carlisle
CARLISLE.
How fair, amid the depth of summer green,
Spread forth thy walls, Carlisle! thy castled heights
Abrupt and lofty, thy cathedral dome
Majestic and alone, thy beauteous bridge
Spanning the Eden, where the angler sits
Patient so long, and marks the browsing sheep
Like sprinkled snow amid the verdant vales.
—Old Time hath hung upon thy misty walls
Legends of festal and of warlike deeds.
King Arthur's wassail-cup; the battle-axe
Of the wild Danish sea-kings; the fierce beak
Of Rome's victorious eagle; Pictish spear,
And Scottish claymore, in confusion mixed
With England's cloth-yard arrow. Every helm
And dinted cuirass hath some stirring tale.
—Yet here thou sitt'st as meekly innocent,
As though thine eager lip had never quaffed
Hot streams of kindred blood.
Well pleased thou art
To hear no more the shout of border feuds,
Laying thy frontier annal at the feet
Of the two sister kingdoms, who with smile,
Arm locked in arm, survey their fair domain.
So may the God of love, bless them and thee.
Fresh flowers thou giv'st me from "Queen Mary's walk,"
Rich red carnations, though to her thy gifts
Were but those bitter weeds and piercing thorns,
Which the poor prisoner plucks.
And so, farewell,
Carlisle and peace be with thee. Thy sweet scenes
And the deep tones of thy cathedral-hymn,
Telling our sabbath of the choir of heaven,
Went with us as we journeyed.
Many a change
In that delightful landscape cheered the eye,
As onward o'er the pleasant banks of Clyde
We traced the barer hills and brighter streams
Of Caledonia, poor, perchance, in gold,
But rich in song; saw crowned with purple light
The Lady of Branksom's towers, the rolling Esk,
Where the impetuous young Lord Lochinvar
Staid not for ford, the homes of Teviotdale
Fast by the Tweed, and last, the classic domes
Of beautiful Edina. The long day
Sped hastily, and once, as the swift coach
Stopped at its destined goal, an ancient dame
Came from a neighboring cottage, with such speed
As hoary years could make, and earnestly
Scanning each passenger, with hurried tone
Demanded, "Is he come?"
"No; not to-day;
To-morrow," was the answer.
So, back she turned,
Lifting her shrivelled finger, with a look
Half-credulous, half-sorrowing, and still
Repeating "aye, to-morrow," homeward went.
'Tis a sad tale. She and her husband led
A life of humble and of honest toil,
Content, though poor. One only son they had
Healthful and bright; and to their eyes he seemed
Exceeding fair. The father was a man
Austere and passionate, and loved his boy,
As fathers often do, with such a pride,
That could not bear the humbling of his faults,
Nor the slow toil to mend them. When he grew
To a tall lad, the mother's readier tact
Discerned that change of character, which meets
With chafing thought the yoke of discipline,
And humored it: but to the sire he seemed
Still as a child, and so he treated him.
When eighteen summers threw a ripening tinge
O'er his bold brow, the father, at some fault,
Born more of carelessness than turpitude,
In anger struck him, bidding him go forth
From his own door. The youth, who shared too well
The fiery temper of his father's blood,
Vowed to return no more.
The mother wept,
And wildly prayed her husband to forgive
And call him back; but he with aspect stern
Bade her be still, and harshly said, the boy
Was by her folly and indulgence spoiled
Beyond redemption. So she meekly took
The tear and prayer into her silent soul,
And waited till the passion-storm should slack
And die away. It was a night of woe;
But mid its agony she blest her God,
That, after hours of tossing, quiet sleep
Stole o'er the wrathful man. With the fresh morn
Relentings came, and that ill-smothered pang,
With which an unruled spirit bears its shame;
And then he bade the woman seek her son.
And forth she went. Alas! it was too late;
He was a listed soldier, for a land
Beyond the seas, nor would their little all
Suffice to buy him back.
'T were long to tell
How loneliness, remorse, and sorrow took
Their Shylock payment for that passion-gust,
And how the father, when his hour was come,
Said with his pale, pale lips and hollow voice,
"Would that our boy was here," and how the wife
In her kind ministrations round his bed,
And in her widowed mourning, murmured still
His dying words, "would that our boy was here."
Years sped, and oft her soldier's letters came,
Replete with filial love, and penitence
For his rash words. But then the mother's ear
Was tortured by the tidings, that he lay
Wounded and sick in foreign hospitals.
A line traced faintly by his own dear hand
Relieved her anguish. He was ordered home
Among the invalids. Joy long unknown.
Sat on her brow. Again to hear his voice,
Το gaze into his eyes, to part the hair
O'er his clear forehead, to prepare his food,
And nurse his feebleness,—she asked no more.
And so, his childhood's long-forsaken bed
Put forth its snowy pillow, and with care
She hung a curtain of flowered muslin o'er
The little casement, where he used to love
To sit and read. The cushioned chair, that cheered
The father's days of sickness, should be his,
And on the favorite table by its side
The hour-glass, with its ever-changing sands,
Which pleased him when a boy.
The morning came.
Slow sped the hours; she heaped the cheerful fire
In the small grate, and ere the coach arrived
Stood, with a throbbing heart, expectant there.
"Is Willy come?" Each traveller intent
On his own business made her no reply:—
"Coachman! is Willy here?"
"No! No! he's dead!
Good woman! dead, and buried near the coast,
Three days ago."
But when a stranger marked
How the strong hues of speechless misery
Changed every feature, he in pity said,
"Perhaps he'll come to-morrow."
Home she turned,
Struck to the heart, and wept the livelong night,
Insensible to comfort; and to those,
Who came in kind compassion to her side,
Answering nothing.
But when day restored
The hour of expectation, with strange zeal
She rose, and dressed, and cast her mantle on,
And as the coachman checked his foaming steeds
Stood closely by his side. "Is Willy here?
Has Willy come?" while he, by pity schooled,
Answered "to-morrow!"
And thus years have fled;
And though her step grows weaker, and the locks
Thinner and whiter on her furrowed brow,
Yet duly, when the shrill horn o'er the hills
Announceth the approaching passenger,
She hurries forth, with wild and wasted eye,
To speak her only question, and receive
That same reply "to-morrow."
And on that
Poor, single fragment doth her yearning heart
Feed and survive. When tottering Reason sank
Beneath the shock of grief, maternal Love
Caught that one word of hope, and held it high,
And grappling to it, like a broken raft,
Still breasts the shoreless ocean of despair.
Monday, August 31, 1840.
"King Arthur's wassail cup."
Carlisle, principally distinguished as it was in border-warfare, had also, as it appears by ancient chronicles, its share in the festivities of the olden time.
"The great king Arthur made a royal feast,
And kept his merry Christmas at Carlisle,
And thither came the vassals most and least,
From every corner of the British isle."
Also in an ancient ballad, in Bishop Percy's Reliques, the same allusion is made.
"In Carlisle dwelt King Arthur,
A prince of passing might,
And there maintained his table round,
Beset with many a knight,
And there he kept his Christmas,
With mirth and great delight."
"England's cloth-yard arrow."
Sir Walter Scott says, "In some of the counties in England, distinguished for archery, shafts of this extraordinary length were actually used;" and he thus alludes to them in Marmion.
"Fast ran the Scottish warriors there
Upon the southern band to stare,
And envy with their wonder rose
To see such well appointed foes,
Such length of shaft, such mighty bows,
So large, that many simply thought,
But for a vaunt such weapons wrought,
And little deemed their force to feel
Through links of mail and plates of steel,
When rattling upon Flodden-vale
The cloth-yard arrows flew like hail."
"Queen Mary's walk."
Some carnations, which were given us from a spot called "The Lady's Walk," we carried with us to Edinburgh, and they retained their freshness and beauty for several days after our arrival there. We visited the remains of the turret, in the castle of Carlisle, where Mary of Scotland was held in confinement, when, after the battle of Langside, she decided to throw herself on the generosity of Elizabeth. We saw also the limits of the promenade, bounded on one side by the moat, where she was permitted to take her daily exercise, guarded by sentinels. Two large ash-trees formerly marked its extreme point, planted, according to tradition, by her own hands. They were numbered among the finest trees of Cumberland, until it was found necessary to cut them down, because they interfered with some architectural design;—I believe, with the construction of a bridge.
We spent some time in examining the Castle, and saw a glorious sunset from its heights. It was built in the reign of Edward the Third; and here his unfortunate grandson, Richard the Second, rested for a night, when making his humiliating journey, in the custody of the aspiring Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry the Fourth. Here, also, Fergus Mac Ivor was imprisoned, and led forth to execution. They pretend to show the print of his hand in a rather soft stone, lining the walls of the cell where he was held in captivity. On the parapets, where the cannon are mounted, I observed a fine, ancient dial, with the following forcible inscription in gold letters: "Hours and ages are nothing to the Eternal, but as for man, they fix his changeless doom for weal, or woe."