The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems on Travel, by R. M. Leonard.

Farewell, farewell! Before our prow
Leaps in white foam the noisy channel;
A tourist's cap is on my brow,
My legs are cased in tourist's flannel:

Around me gasp the invalids—5
(The quantity to-night is fearful)
I take a brace or so of weeds,
And feel (as yet) extremely cheerful.

The night wears on:—my thirst I quench
With one imperial pint of porter;10
Then drop upon a casual bench—
(The bench is short, but I am shorter)—

Place 'neath my head the havre-sac
Which I have stored my little all in,
And sleep, though moist about the back,15
Serenely in an old tarpaulin.

Bed at Ostend at 5 a.m.
Breakfast at 6, and train 6.30,
Tickets to Königswinter (mem.
The seats objectionably dirty).20

And onward through those dreary flats
We move, with scanty space to sit on,
Flanked by stout girls with steeple hats,
And waists that paralyse a Briton;—

By many a tidy little town,25
Where tidy little Fraus sit knitting,
(The men's pursuits are, lying down,
Smoking perennial pipes, and spitting;)

And doze, and execrate the heat,
And wonder how far off Cologne is,30
And if we shall get aught to eat,
Till we get there, save raw polonies;

Until at last the 'grey old pile'
Is seen, is past, and three hours later
We're ordering steaks, and talking vile35
Mock-German to an Austrian waiter.

On, on the vessel steals;
Round go the paddle wheels,
And now the tourist feels
As he should;40

For king-like rolls the Rhine,
And the scenery's divine,
And the victuals and the wine
Rather good.

From every crag we pass 'll45
Rise up some hoar old castle;
The hanging fir-groves tassel
Every slope;
And the vine her lithe arm stretches
O'er peasants singing catches—50
And you'll make no end of sketches,
I should hope.

We've a nun here (called Therèse),
Two couriers out of place,
One Yankee with a face55
Like a ferret's:
And three youths in scarlet caps
Drinking chocolate and schnapps—
A diet which perhaps
Has its merits.60

And day again declines:
In shadow sleep the vines,
And the last ray through the pines
Feebly glows,
Then sinks behind yon ridge;65
And the usual evening midge
Is settling on the bridge
Of my nose.

And keen's the air and cold,
And the sheep are in the fold,70
And Night walks sable-stoled
Through the trees;
And on the silent river
The floating starbeams quiver;—
And now, the saints deliver75
Us from fleas.

Avenues of broad white houses,
Basking in the noontide glare;—
Streets, which foot of traveller shrinks from,
As on hot plates shrinks the bear;—80

Elsewhere lawns, and vistaed gardens,
Statues white, and cool arcades,
Where at eve the German warrior
Winks upon the German maids;—

Such is Munich:—broad and stately,85
Rich of hue, and fair of form;
But, towards the end of August,
Unequivocally warm.

NUREMBERG

In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng:

Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,5
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;

And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.

In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand;10

On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days
Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.

Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;

And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,15
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.

In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;

In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.20

Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,
Lived and laboured Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art;

Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.

Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;25
Dead he is not, but departed,—for the artist never dies.

Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,
That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!

Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,
Walked of yore the Master-singers, chanting rude poetic strains.30

From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,
Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.

As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,
And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;

Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom35
In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.

But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;40

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,
As the old man grey and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.

And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.

Vanished is the ancient splendour, and before my dreamy eye45
Wave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard;
But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.

Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,
As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay:50

Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,
The nobility of labour,—the long pedigree of toil.

AGED CITIES

I have known cities with the strong-armed Rhine
Clasping their mouldered quays in lordly sweep;
And lingered where the Maine's low waters shine
Through Tyrian Frankfort; and been fain to weep
'Mid the green cliffs where pale Mosella laves5
That Roman sepulchre, imperial Treves.
Ghent boasts her street, and Bruges her moonlight square;
And holy Mechlin, Rome of Flanders, stands,
Like a queen-mother, on her spacious lands;
And Antwerp shoots her glowing spire in air.10
Yet have I seen no place, by inland brook,
Hill-top, or plain, or trim arcaded bowers,
That carries age so nobly in its look,
As Oxford with the sun upon her towers.

BRUGES

The Spirit of Antiquity—enshrined
In sumptuous buildings, vocal in sweet song,
In picture, speaking with heroic tongue,
And with devout solemnities entwined—
Mounts to the seat of grace within the mind:5
Hence Forms that glide with swan-like ease along,
Hence motions, even amid the vulgar throng,
To an harmonious decency confined:
As if the streets were consecrated ground,
The city one vast temple, dedicate10
To mutual respect in thought and deed;
To leisure, to forbearances sedate;
To social cares from jarring passions freed;
A deeper peace than that in deserts found!

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapours gray,5
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.10

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;
And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,
With their strange unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;15
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;

All the Foresters of Flanders,—mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre.20

I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold.

Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;25
I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,
And the armèd guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.

I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,
Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;30

Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;

Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,35
'I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!'

Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.

Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.40

THE CARILLON

ANTWERP AND BRUGES

At Antwerp, there is a low wall
Binding the city, and a moat
Beneath, that the wind keeps afloat.
You pass the gates in a slow drawl
Of wheels. If it is warm at all5
The Carillon will give you thought.

I climbed the stair in Antwerp church,
What time the urgent weight of sound
At sunset seems to heave it round.
Far up, the Carillon did search10
The wind; and the birds came to perch
Far under, where the gables wound.

In Antwerp harbour on the Scheldt
I stood along, a certain space
Of night. The mist was near my face:15
Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.
The Carillon kept pause, and dwelt
In music through the silent place.

At Bruges, when you leave the train,
—A singing numbness in your ears,—20
The Carillon's first sound appears
Only the inner moil. Again
A little minute though—your brain
Takes quiet, and the whole sense hears.

John Memmeling and John Van Eyck25
Hold state at Bruges. In sore shame
I scanned the works that keep their name.
The Carillon, which then did strike
Mine ears, was heard of theirs alike;
It set me closer unto them.30

I climbed at Bruges all the flight
The Belfry has of ancient stone.
For leagues I saw the east wind blown:
The earth was grey, the sky was white.
I stood so near upon the height35
That my flesh left the Carillon.

HOLLAND

Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but the off-scouring of the British sand;
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots when they heaved the lead;
Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell,5
Of shipwrecked cockle and the mussel-shell;
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Glad then, as miners who have found the ore,
They, with mad labour, fished the land to shore:
And dived as desperately for each piece11
Of earth, as if 't had been of ambergris;
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,
Less than what building swallows bear away;
Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll15
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul!
How did they rivet, with gigantic piles,
Thorough the centre their new-catchèd miles;
And to the stake a struggling country bound,
Where barking waves still bait the forcèd ground;
Building their watery Babel far more high21
To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky.
Yet still his claim the injured ocean laid,
And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played;
As if on purpose it on land had come25
To shew them what's their mare liberum,
A daily deluge over them does boil;
The earth and water play at level-coil.
The fish oft-times the burgher dispossessed,
And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest;30
And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, saw
Whole shoals of Dutch served up for Cabillau;
Or, as they over the new level ranged,
For pickled herring, pickled heeren changed.

THE HAGUE

While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix,
And in one day atone for the business of six,
In a little Dutch chaise, on a Saturday night,
On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right;
No memoirs to compose, and no post-boy to move,
That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love.6
For her neither visits nor parties at tea,
Nor the long-winded cant of a dull refugee.
This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine,
To good or ill fortune the third we resign.10
Thus scorning the world, and superior to fate,
I drive in my car in professional state.
So with Phia through Athens Pisistratus rode;
Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god.
But why should I stories of Athens rehearse15
Where people knew love, and were partial to verse,
Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose
In Holland half-drownèd in interest and prose?
By Greece and past ages what need I be tried
When The Hague and the present are both on my side;20
And is it enough for the joys of the day
To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say?
When good Vandergoes and his provident vrow,
As they gaze on my triumph do freely allow,
That, search all the province, you'll find no man dar is25
So blest as the Englishen Heer Secretar' is.

ROTTERDAM

I gaze upon a city,
A city new and strange;
Down many a watery vista
My fancy takes a range;
From side to side I saunter,5
And wonder where I am;—
And can you be in England,
And I at Rotterdam!

Before me lie dark waters,
In broad canals and deep,10
Whereon the silver moonbeams
Sleep, restless in their sleep;
A sort of vulgar Venice
Reminds me where I am,—
Yes, yes, you are in England,15
And I'm at Rotterdam.

Tall houses with quaint gables,
Where frequent windows shine,
And quays that lead to bridges,
And trees in formal line,20
And masts of spicy vessels,
From distant Surinam,
All tell me you're in England,
And I'm in Rotterdam.

Those sailors,—how outlandish25
The face and garb of each!
They deal in foreign gestures,
And use a foreign speech;
A tongue not learned near Isis,
Or studied by the Cam,30
Declares that you're in England,
But I'm at Rotterdam.

And now across a market
My doubtful way I trace,
Where stands a solemn statue,35
The Genius of the place;
And to the great Erasmus
I offer my salaam,—
Who tells me you're in England,
And I'm at Rotterdam.40

The coffee-room is open,
I mingle in its crowd;
The dominoes are rattling,
The hookahs raise a cloud;
A flavour, none of Fearon's,45
That mingles with my dram,
Reminds me you're in England,
But I'm in Rotterdam,

Then here it goes, a bumper,—
The toast it shall be mine.50
In Schiedam, or in Sherry,
Tokay, or Hock of Rhine,—
It well deserves the brightest
Where sunbeam ever swam,—
'The girl I love in England,'55
I drink at Rotterdam!

THE PROGRESS OF ERROR

No plainer truth appears,
Our most important are our earliest years;
The mind, impressible and soft, with ease
Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees,
And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue5
That education gives her, false or true.
Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong;
Man's coltish disposition asks the thong;
And, without discipline, the favourite child,
Like a neglected forester, runs wild.10
But we, as if good qualities would grow
Spontaneous, take but little pains to sow;
We give some Latin, and a smatch of Greek;
Teach him to fence and figure twice a week;
And, having done, we think, the best we can,15
Praise his proficiency, and dub him man.
From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home;
And thence, with all convenient speed, to Rome,
With reverend tutor, clad in habit lay,
To tease for cash, and quarrel with, all day;20
With memorandum-book for every town,
And every post, and where the chaise broke down;
His stock, a few French phrases got by heart;
With much to learn, but nothing to impart,
The youth, obedient to his sire's commands,25
Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands.
Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair,
With awkward gait, stretched neck, and silly stare,
Discover huge cathedrals, built with stone,
And steeples towering high, much like our own;30
But show peculiar light by many a grin
At popish practices observed within.
Ere long, some bowing, smirking, smart abbé,
Remarks two loiterers that have lost their way;
And, being always primed with politesse35
For men of their appearance and address,
With much compassion undertakes the task
To tell them—more than they have wit to ask:
Points to inscriptions wheresoe'er they tread,
Such as, when legible, were never read,40
But, being cankered now, and half worn out,
Craze antiquarian brains with endless doubt;
Some headless hero, or some Caesar shows—
Defective only in his Roman nose;
Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans,45
Models of Herculanean pots and pans;
And sells them medals, which, if neither rare
Nor ancient, will be so, preserved with care.
Strange the recital! from whatever cause
His great improvement and new lights he draws,50
The squire, once bashful, is shame-faced no more,
But teems with powers he never felt before;
Whether increased momentum, and the force
With which from clime to clime he sped his course,
(As axles sometimes kindle as they go)55
Chafed him, and brought dull nature to a glow;
Or whether clearer skies and softer air,
That make Italian flowers so sweet and fair,
Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran,
Unfolded genially, and spread the man;60
Returning, he proclaims, by many a grace,
By shrugs, and strange contortions of his face,
How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.

ADVICE AGAINST TRAVEL

Traverse not the globe for lore! The sternest
But the surest teacher is the heart;
Studying that and that alone, thou learnest
Best and soonest whence and what thou art.

Time, not travel, 'tis which gives us ready5
Speech, experience, prudence, tact, and wit.
Far more light the lamp that bideth steady
Than the wandering lantern doth emit.

Moor, Chinese, Egyptian, Russian, Roman,
Tread one common down-hill path of doom;10
Everywhere the names are Man and Woman,
Everywhere the old sad sins find room.

Evil angels tempt us in all places.
What but sands or snows hath earth to give?
Dream not, friend, of deserts and oases,15
But look inwards, and begin to live!

HAD CAIN BEEN SCOT

Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom,—
Not forced him wander, but confined him home.

A SONG OF THE ROAD

The gauger walked with willing foot,
And aye the gauger played the flute;
And what should Master Gauger play
But Over the hills and far away?

Whene'er I buckle on my pack5
And foot it gaily in the track,
O pleasant gauger, long since dead,
I hear you fluting on ahead.

You go with me the self-same way—
The self-same air for me you play;10
For I do think and so do you,
It is the tune to travel to.

For who would gravely set his face
To go to this or t'other place?
There's nothing under Heav'n so blue15
That's fairly worth the travelling to.

On every hand the roads begin,
And people walk with zeal therein;
But whereso'er the highways tend,
Be sure there's nothing at the end.20

Then follow you, wherever hie
The travelling mountains of the sky.
Or let the streams in civil mode
Direct your choice upon a road;

For one and all, or high or low,25
Will lead you where you wish to go;
And one and all go night and day
Over the hills and far away!

NOTES

The difficulty has been to select from a wealth of poems with which volumes could have been filled. Indeed three collections dealing exclusively with Greece, with Italy, and with Switzerland have already been published by the Oxford University Press. In this volume the traveller is not confined to one country, and he is not asked to drag a lengthening chain beyond the limits of Europe. Here are some poems about travel generally, and then country by country a grand tour is traced. My obligation to the authors or owners of copyright poems is duly acknowledged with grateful thanks.

P. 11. Bridges.—By kind permission of the Poet Laureate and Messrs. Smith, Elder.

Pp. 12 and 13. Arnold.—From Stanzas composed at Carnac and Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse.

Pp. 20 and 21. Tennyson.—The passage from Oenone and the idyll from The Princess are given here because their imagery was inspired by the Pyrenees, which the poet repeatedly visited, first of all in 1830 with Hallam, intending to aid in the Spanish revolt against Ferdinand VII. Tennyson also spent some time in the Pyrenees with Clough in 1861. It is Hallam who is referred to in In the Valley of Cauteretz, a poem which Tennyson selected to write in Queen Victoria's album. Swinburne has praised 'the solemn sweetness' of these 'majestic verses'.

P. 29. Butler.—By permission of Mrs. A. G. Butler. The poem originally appeared in The Times shortly after the Matterhorn accident in 1865.

Pp. 32 and 33. Watts-Dunton.—By kind permission of the author, given shortly before his death.

P. 35. Arnold.—The first portion is from Stanzas in Memory of the Author of 'Obermann' (Étienne Pivert de Senancour); the second from Obermann once More, composed many years afterwards.

P. 48. Clough.—The concluding lines of the introduction to canto iii of Amours de Voyage.

P. 53. Byron.—From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto iv, 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, and 13.

P. 62. Hardy.—From Wessex Poems, etc. By permission of the author and Messrs. Macmillan.

P. 64. Clough.—From Amours de Voyage, canto iii. There is a note to line 8:

THE PURSUIT OF LETTERS

FROM 'DOVER TO MUNICH'

NUREMBERG

AGED CITIES

BRUGES

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES

THE CARILLON

ANTWERP AND BRUGES

HOLLAND

THE HAGUE

ROTTERDAM

THE PROGRESS OF ERROR

ADVICE AGAINST TRAVEL

HAD CAIN BEEN SCOT

A SONG OF THE ROAD

NOTES

THE PURSUIT OF LETTERS

FROM 'DOVER TO MUNICH'

NUREMBERG

AGED CITIES

BRUGES

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES

THE CARILLON ANTWERP AND BRUGES

HOLLAND

THE HAGUE

ROTTERDAM

THE PROGRESS OF ERROR

ADVICE AGAINST TRAVEL

HAD CAIN BEEN SCOT

A SONG OF THE ROAD

NOTES

THE CARILLON

ANTWERP AND BRUGES