Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Norman Gale b. 1862

To My Brothers

O BROTHERS, who must ache and stoop

O’er wordy tasks in London town,

How scantly Laura trips for you—

A poem in a gown!

How rare if Grub-street grew a lawn!

How sweet if Nature’s lap could spare

A dandelion for the Strand,

A cowslip for Mayfair!

But here, from immaterial lyres,

There rings in easy confidence

The blackbird’s bright philosophy

On apple-spray or fence:

For ploughmen wending home from toil

Some patriot thrush outpours his lay,

And voices, wildly eloquent,

The diary of his day.

These living lyrics you may hear

Remembering the lane’s romance,

All hung in wicker heels to chirp

Thin ghosts of utterance:

But where the gusts of liberty

Make Ragged Robin wisely bend,

They quicken hedgerows with their song,

Melodiously unpenned.

If souls of mighty singers leave

The vacant body to its hush,

Does Shelley linger in the lark,

Or Keats possess the thrush?

The end is undecaying doubt,

And in some blackbird’s bosom still

Great Tennyson may sweeten eve

And whistle on the hill.

Come, brothers, to this clean delight,

And watch the velvet-headed tit.

Here ’s honest sorrel in the grass

And sturdy cuckoo-spit:

What shepherds hear you shall not miss,

And at deliverance of dawn

Shall see a miracle of bloom

Across the sparkling lawn.

The forest musically begs

To fan you with its leafy love;

Oh, fall asleep upon this moss

Entreated by the dove!

Here shall that sweet Conservative,

Dear Mother Nature, lend to you

Her lovely rural elements

Beneath the primal blue.

O brothers, who must ache and stoop

O’er wordy tasks in London town,

How scantly Laura trips for you—

A poem in a gown!

How good if Fleet-street grew a lawn!

How sweet if garden-plots could spare

A bed of cloves to scent the Strand,

A pansy for Mayfair!