For Scotland
Beyond the Cheviots and the Tweed,
Beyond the Firth of Forth,
My memory returns at speed
To Scotland and the North.
For still I keep, and ever shall,
A warm place in my heart for Scotland,
Scotland, Scotland,
A warm place in my heart for Scotland.
Oh, cruel off St. Andrew's Bay
The winds are wont to blow!
They either rest or gently play,
When there in dreams I go.
And there I wander, young again,
With limbs that do not tire,
Along the coast to Kittock's Den,
With whinbloom all afire.
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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The End Of April
This is the time when larks are singing loud
And higher still ascending and more high,
This is the time when many a fleecy cloud
Runs lamb-like on the pastures of the sky,
This is the time when most I love to lie
Stretched on the links, now listening to the sea,
Now looking at the train that dawdles by;
But James is going in for his degree.
James is my brother. He has twice been ploughed,
Yet he intends to have another shy,
Hoping to pass (as he says) in a crowd.
Sanguine is James, but not so sanguine I.
If you demand my reason, I reply:
Because he reads no Greek without a key
And spells Thucydides c-i-d-y;
Yet James is going in for his degree.
No doubt, if the authorities allowed
The taking in of Bohns, he might defy
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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Stanzas For Music
I loved a little maiden
In the golden years gone by;
She lived in a mill, as they all do
(There is doubtless a reason why).
But she faded in the autumn
When the leaves began to fade,
And the night before she faded,
These words to me she said:
'Do not forget me, Henry,
Be noble and brave and true;
But I must not bide, for the world is wide,
And the sky above is blue.'
So I said farewell to my darling,
And sailed away and came back;
And the good ship Jane was in port again,
And I found that they all loved Jack.
But Polly and I were sweethearts,
As all the neighbours know,
Before I met with the mill-girl
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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To C.C.C.
Oh for the nights when we used to sit
In the firelight's glow or flicker,
With the gas turned low and our pipes all lit,
And the air fast growing thicker;
When you, enthroned in the big arm-chair,
Would spin for us yarns unending,
Your voice and accent and pensive air
With the narrative subtly blending!
Oh for the bleak and wintry days
When we set our blood in motion,
Leaping the rocks below the braes
And wetting our feet in the ocean,
Or shying at marks for moderate sums
(A penny a hit, you remember),
With aching fingers and purple thumbs,
In the merry month of December!
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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Vanity of Vanities
Be ye happy, if ye may,
In the years that pass away.
Ye shall pass and be forgot,
And your place shall know you not.
Other generations rise,
With the same hope in their eyes
That in yours is kindled now,
And the same light on their brow.
They shall see the selfsame sun
That your eyes now gaze upon,
They shall breathe the same sweet air,
And shall reck not who ye were.
Yet they too shall fade at last
In the twilight of the past,
They and you alike shall be
Lost from the world's memory.
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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Love's Phantom
Whene'er I try to read a book,
Across the page your face will look,
And then I neither know nor care
What sense the printed words may bear.
At night when I would go to sleep,
Thinking of you, awake I keep,
And still repeat the words you said,
Like sick men murmuring prayers in bed.
And when, with weariness oppressed:
I sink in spite of you to rest,
Your image, like a lovely sprite,
Haunts me in dreams through half the night.
I wake upon the autumn morn
To find the sunrise hardly-born,
And in the sky a soft pale blue,
And in my heart your image true.
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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A Street Corner
Here, where the thoroughfares meet at an angle
Of ninety degrees (this angle is right),
You may hear the loafers that jest and wrangle
Through the sun-lit day and the lamp-lit night;
Though day be dreary and night be wet,
You will find a ceaseless concourse met;
Their laughter resounds and their Fife tongues jangle,
And now and again their Fife fists fight.
Often here the voice of the crier
Heralds a sale in the City Hall,
And slowly but surely drawing nigher
Is heard the baker's bugle call.
The baker halts where the two ways meet,
And the blast, though loud, is far from sweet
That with breath of bellows and heart of fire
He blows, till the echoes leap from the wall.
And on Saturday night just after eleven,
When the taverns have closed a moment ago,
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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A Tennyson Fragment
So in the village inn the poet dwelt.
His honey-dew was gone; only the pouch,
His cousin's work, her empty labour, left.
But still he sniffed it, still a fragrance clung
And lingered all about the broidered flowers.
Then came his landlord, saying in broad Scotch,
`Smoke plug, mon,' whom he looked at doubtfully.
Then came the grocer saying, `Hae some twist
At tippence,' whom he answered with a qualm.
But when they left him to himself again,
Twist, like a fiend's breath from a distant room
Diffusing through the passage, crept; the smell
Deepening had power upon him, and he mixt
His fancies with the billow-lifted bay
Of Biscay, and the rollings of a ship.
And on that night he made a little song,
And called his song `The Song of Twist and Plug,'
And sang it; scarcely could he make or sing.
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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The Solitary
I have been lonely all my days on earth,
Living a life within my secret soul,
With mine own springs of sorrow and of mirth,
Beyond the world's control.
Though sometimes with vain longing I have sought
To walk the paths where other mortals tread,
To wear the clothes for other mortals wrought,
And eat the selfsame bread -
Yet have I ever found, when thus I strove
To mould my life upon the common plan,
That I was furthest from all truth and love,
And least a living man.
Truth frowned upon my poor hypocrisy,
Life left my soul, and dwelt but in my sense;
No man could love me, for all men could see
The hollow vain pretence.
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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The House of Sleep
When we have laid aside our last endeavour,
And said farewell to one or two that weep,
And issued from the house of life for ever,
To find a lodging in the house of sleep -
With eyes fast shut, in sunless chambers lying,
With folded arms unmoved upon the breast,
Beyond the noise of sorrow and of crying,
Beyond the dread of dreaming, shall we rest?
Or shall there come at last desire of waking,
To walk again on hillsides that we know,
When sunrise through the cold white mist is breaking,
Or in the stillness of the after-glow?
Shall there be yearning for the sound of voices,
The sight of faces, and the touch of hands,
The will that works, the spirit that rejoices,
The heart that feels, the mind that understands?
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poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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