vividly a painter of real life as Mr. Allingham, while his poetry has a grace and inward tenderness entirely wanting to the literal transcriptions of Crabbe. His candor is also com
plete, and his politics are only to be inferred, as he is equally impartial in depicting what he considers the evils of both parties. His aim has been to give a thoroughly faithful portraiture of existing society and circumstance, and the clearest insight into and the most vivid representation of contemporary life in Ireland is to be found in Lawrence Bloomfield," not excepting Mr. W. Steuart Trench's "Realities of Irish Life," or Mr. Anthony Trollope's "MacDermots of Ballycloran."
FROM "LAWRENCE BLOOMFIELD IN IRELAND."
SMALL Ballytullagh was an ancient place,
Built in the hollow of a rock-strewn hill,
A rugged fold of earth, but kindly still
To those who lived there. Better there live poor
Than in the monstrous city's heart, be sure.
So low and weather-stained the walls, the thatch
So dusk of hue, or spread with mossy patch,
A stranger journeying on the distant road
Might hardly guess that human hearts abode
In those wild fields, save when a smoky wreath
Distinguished from huge rocks above, beneath,
Its huddled roofs. A lane goes up the hill,
Crossed at one elbow by a crystal rill,
Between the stepping-stones gay tripping o'er
In shallow brightness on its gravelly floor,
From crags above, with falls and rocky runs,
Through sward below in deep deliberate turns,
Where each fine evening brought the boys to play
At football or with camuns drive away
The whizzing nagg† ; a crooked lane and steep,
Older than broad highways, you find it creep
Fenced in with stooping thorn-trees, bramble-brakes,
Tall edgestones, gleaming, gay as spotted snakes,
With gold and silver lichen; till it bends
Between the rock-based, rough-built gable ends,
To make the street, if one may call it street,
Where ducks and pigs in filthy forum meet;
A scrambling, careless, tattered place, no doubt,
Each cottage rude within doors as without.
Though poor this hamlet, sweet its rustic days, Secluded from the world's tumultuous ways, When famine times and fever times went by, If crops were good, provisions not too high; And well it mingled with the varying sound Of birds and rills and breezy waste around, Its hum of housewife's wheel, or farm-cock's crow, Or whetted scythe, or cattle's evening low, Or high-pitched voice of little girl or boy, The sturdy men at work with spade and loy; The clothes spread out along the stooping hedge, The tethered goat upon the rock's green ledge, The game, or quiet pipe, when toil was done, The colleens at their broidery in the sun, Skirt over head, or washing in the brook, Or singing ballads round the chimney-nook, For daily life's material good enough Such trivial incidents and homely stuff. And here, too, could those miracles befall Of wedding, new-born babe, and funeral, Each natural feeling, every fancy rise, Touch common earth and soar to mystic skies. * Camuns, crooked sticks. † Nagg, a wooden ball.
Gaze upon Oona of the milk-white hair,
With burden of a century to bear;
The wonders and enchanting hopes of youth,
The toils of life and disappointing truth,
Delights and cares that wives and mothers know,
The turns of wisdom, folly, joy, and woe,
The gradual change of all things year by year,
While she to one Great Doorway still draws near,
All good and ill from childhood to old age
For her have moved on this poor narrow stage.
A cottage built; farm shifting hands; big thorn
By midnight tempest from its place uptorn;
The Church's rites, the stations and the priests;
Wakes, dances, faction-fights, and wedding-feasts;
Good, honest neighbors; ruffians, crafty rogues;
The wild youth limping back without his brogues;
The moneyed man returning from the West,
With beard and golden watch-chains on his breast;
He that enlisted; she that went astray;
Landlords and agents of a former day;
The time of raging floods; the twelve weeks' frost ;
Dear summers, and how much their oatmeal cost;
The Tullagh baby-daughters, baby-sons,
Grown up, grown gray; a crowd of buried ones;
These little bygones Oona would recall
In deep-voiced Gaelic, faltering now they fall,
Or on her faint lips murmur unaware;
And many a time she lifts her eyes in prayer,
And many an hour her placid spirit seems
Content as infant smiling through its dreams,
In solemn trance of body and of mind,
As though, its business with the world resigned,
The soul, withdrawn into a central calm,
Lay hushed, in foretaste of immortal balm.
That face, now seen but seldom, no one saw
Without a touch of tenderness and awe;
And every tongue around her feared to tell
The great misfortune worse than yet befell
In all her length of journey. When they tried
To move her, "Would they take her life?" she cried,
At which it rested, hap what happen might,
And scarcely one, in truth, prepared for flight.
Contempt of prudence, anger and despair,
And vis inertia, kept them as they were.
"God and the world will see it,"
"Let all the wrong be on the doer's head.!"
In early morning twilight, raw and chill,
Damp vapors brooding on the barren hill,
Through miles of mire, in steady, grave array,
Threescore well-armed police pursue their way;
Each tall and bearded man a rifle swings,
And under each great-coat a bayonet clings;
The sheriff on his sturdy cob astride
Talks with the Chief, who marches by their side,
And, creeping on behind them, Paudeen Dhu
Pretends his needful duty much to rue.
Six big-boned laborers, clad in common frieze,
Walk in their midst, the sheriff's stanch allies;
Six crowbar men from distant county brought,
Orange and glorying in their work 't is thought,
But wrongly, churls of Catholics are they,
And merely hired at half-a-crown a day.
The hamlet clustering on its hill is seen,
A score of petty homesteads, dark and mean;
Poor always, not despairing until now;
Long used, as well as poverty knows how
With life's oppressive trifles to contend,
This day will bring its history to an end.
Moveless and grim against the cottage walls
Lean a few silent men; but some one calls
Far off; and then a child "without a stitch"
Runs out of doors, flies back with piercing screech,
And soon from house to house is heard the cry
Of female sorrow swelling loud and high,
Which makes the men blaspheme between their teeth.
Meanwhile o'er fence and watery field beneath,
The little army moves through drizzling rain;
A "Crowbar" leads the sheriff's nag; the lane
Is entered, and their plashing hoofs draw near;
One instant, outcry holds its breath to hear;
"Halt!" at the doors they form in double line,
And ranks of polished rifles wetly shine,
The Sheriff's pained, but "Duty must be done!" Exhorts to quiet and the work's begun.
The strong stand ready; now appear the rest,
Girl, matron, grandsire, baby on the breast,
And Rosy's thin face on a pallet borne;
A motly concourse, feeble and forlorn.
One old man, tears upon his wrinkled cheek,
Stands trembling on a threshold, tries to speak,
But in defect of any word for this,
Mutely upon the doorpost prints a kiss,
Then passes out, forever. Through the crowd
The children run bewildered, wailing loud;
At various points the men combine their aid;
And last of all is Oona forth conveyed,
Reclined in her accustomed strawen chair,
Her aged eyelids closed, her thick white hair
Escaping from her cap; she feels the chill,
Looks round and murmurs, then again is still.
Now bring the remnants of each household fire,
On the wet ground the hissing coals expire.
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