Ballads of a Bohemian Part 19

Finistere

Hurrah! I'm off to Finistere, to Finistere, to Finistere; My satchel's swinging on my back, my staff is in my hand; I've twenty _louis_ in my purse, I know the sun and sea are there, And so I'm starting out to-day to tramp the golden land.

I'll go alone and glorying, with on my lips a song of joy; I'll leave behind the city with its canker and its care; I'll swing along so st.u.r.dily--oh, won't I be the happy boy!

A-singing on the rocky roads, the roads of Finistere.

Oh, have you been to Finistere, and do you know a whin-gray town That echoes to the clatter of a thousand wooden shoes?

And have you seen the fisher-girls go gallivantin' up and down, And watched the tawny boats go out, and heard the roaring crews?

Oh, would you sit with pipe and bowl, and dream upon some sunny quay, Or would you walk the windy heath and drink the cooler air; Oh, would you seek a cradled cove and tussle with the topaz sea!-- Pack up your kit to-morrow, lad, and haste to Finistere.

Oh, I will go to Finistere, there's nothing that can hold me back.

I'll laugh with Yves and Leon, and I'll chaff with Rose and Jeanne; I'll seek the little, quaint _buvette_ that's kept by Mother Merdrinac Who wears a cap of many frills, and swears just like a man.

I'll yarn with hearty, hairy chaps who dance and leap and crack their heels; Who swallow cupfuls of cognac and never turn a hair; I'll watch the nut-brown boats come in with mullet, plaice and conger eels, The jeweled harvest of the sea they reap in Finistere.

Yes, I'll come back from Finistere with memories of s.h.i.+ning days, Of scaly nets and salty men in overalls of brown; Of ancient women knitting as they watch the tethered cattle graze By little nestling beaches where the gorse goes blazing down; Of headlands silvering the sea, of Calvarys against the sky, Of scorn of angry sunsets, and of Carnac grim and bare; Oh, won't I have the leaping veins, and tawny cheek and sparkling eye, When I come back to Montparna.s.se and dream of Finistere.

_Two days later_.

Behold me with staff and scrip, footing it merrily in the Land of Pardons. I have no goal. When I am weary I stop at some _auberge_; when I am rested I go on again. Neither do I put any constraint on my spirit. No subduing of the mind to the task of the moment. I dream to heart's content.

My dreams stretch into the future. I see myself a singer of simple songs, a laureate of the under-dog. I will write books, a score of them. I will voyage far and wide. I will . . .

But there! Dreams are dangerous. They waste the time one should spend in making them come true. Yet when we do make them come true, we find the vision sweeter than the reality. How much of our happiness do we owe to dreams? I have in mind one old chap who used to herd the sheep on my uncle's farm.

Old David Smail

He dreamed away his hours in school; He sat with such an absent air, The master reckoned him a fool, And gave him up in dull despair.

When other lads were making hay You'd find him loafing by the stream; He'd take a book and slip away, And just pretend to fish . . . and dream.

His brothers pa.s.sed him in the race; They climbed the hill and clutched the prize.

He did not seem to heed, his face Was tranquil as the evening skies.

He lived apart, he spoke with few; Abstractedly through life he went; Oh, what he dreamed of no one knew, And yet he seemed to be content.

I see him now, so old and gray, His eyes with inward vision dim; And though he faltered on the way, Somehow I almost envied him.

At last beside his bed I stood: "And is Life done so soon?" he sighed; "It's been so rich, so full, so good, I've loved it all . . ."--and so he died.

_Another day_.

Framed in hedgerows of emerald, the wheat glows with a caloric fervor, as if gorged with summer heat. In the vivid green of pastures old women are herding cows. Calm and patient are their faces as with gentle industry they bend over their knitting. One feels that they are necessary to the landscape.

To gaze at me the field-workers suspend the magnificent lethargy of their labors. The men with the reaping hooks improve the occasion by another pull at the cider bottle under the stook; the women raise apathetic brown faces from the sheaf they are tying; every one is a study in deliberation, though the crop is russet ripe and crying to be cut.

Then on I go again amid high banks overgrown with fern and honeysuckle.

Sometimes I come on an old mill that seems to have been constructed by Constable, so charmingly does Nature imitate Art. By the deserted house, half drowned in greenery, the velvety wheel, dipping in the crystal water, seems to protest against this prolongation of its toil.

Then again I come on its brother, the Mill of the Wind, whirling its arms so cheerily, as it turns its great white stones for its master, the floury miller by the door.

These things delight me. I am in a land where Time has lagged, where simple people timorously hug the Past. How far away now seems the welter and swelter of the city, the hectic sophistication of the streets. The sense of wonder is strong in me again, the joy of looking at familiar things as if one were seeing them for the first time.

The Wonderer

I wish that I could understand The moving marvel of my Hand; I watch my fingers turn and twist, The supple bending of my wrist, The dainty touch of finger-tip, The steel intensity of grip; A tool of exquisite design, With pride I think: "It's mine! It's mine!"

Then there's the wonder of my Eyes, Where hills and houses, seas and skies, In waves of light converge and pa.s.s, And print themselves as on a gla.s.s.

Line, form and color live in me; I am the Beauty that I see; Ah! I could write a book of size About the wonder of my Eyes.

What of the wonder of my Heart, That plays so faithfully its part?

I hear it running sound and sweet; It does not seem to miss a beat; Between the cradle and the grave It never falters, stanch and brave.

Alas! I wish I had the art To tell the wonder of my Heart.

Then oh! but how can I explain The wondrous wonder of my Brain?

That marvelous machine that brings All consciousness of wonderings; That lets me from myself leap out And watch my body walk about; It's hopeless--all my words are vain To tell the wonder of my Brain.

But do not think, O patient friend, Who reads these stanzas to the end, That I myself would glorify. . . .

You're just as wonderful as I, And all Creation in our view Is quite as marvelous as you.

Come, let us on the sea-sh.o.r.e stand And wonder at a grain of sand; And then into the meadow pa.s.s And marvel at a blade of gra.s.s; Or cast our vision high and far And thrill with wonder at a star; A host of stars--night's holy tent Huge-glittering with wonderment.

If wonder is in great and small, Then what of Him who made it all?

In eyes and brain and heart and limb Let's see the wondrous work of Him.

In house and hill and sward and sea, In bird and beast and flower and tree, In everything from sun to sod, The wonder and the awe of G.o.d.

August 9, 1914.

For some time the way has been growing wilder. Thickset hedges have yielded to d.y.k.es of stone, and there is every sign that I am approaching the rugged region of the coast. At each point of vantage I can see a Cross, often a relic of the early Christians, stumpy and corroded. Then I come on a slab of gray stone upstanding about fifteen feet. Like a sentinel on that solitary plain it overwhelms me with a sense of mystery.

But as I go on through this desolate land these stones become more and more familiar. Like soldiers they stand in rank, extending over the moor. The sky is cowled with cloud, save where a sullen sunset shoots blood-red rays across the plain. Bathed in that sinister light stands my army of stone, and a wind swooping down seems to wail amid its ranks.