The Glen

Right on the mountain top she poised and stood,A moment all her rounded splendour showed,Then leaped in air and took her heavenly road,Casting her veil o’er valley, hill, and wood,While old Barrule remained in pensive mood,Still on she went to some care-free abode,And never slacked her silver steps or slowed,Leaving him that one kiss whereon to brood;But with unruffled calm his quiet mightWatched his own glen nor heeded her a jot,Till in an ecstacy of sport and spiteShe fled into the nearest cloud to blotWith darkness all his world; he heeded not,Knowing she could not long keep out of sight.

All silver white when mystic twilight fallsThe fair sweet lilies in their order stand,Shrined in the deepening dusk, a radiant band,Like Saints adoring in their fretted stalls,The meeting waters seam to hush their brawlsAnd slip more softly o’er the narrow strandAs, waiting an unuttered anthem grand,The listening silence all the sense enthrals,Slowly the darkness gathers—one bright starFrom the dim chancel sends a lonely ray.No longer is our Heaven remote and far,For, in a moment we can find the way,Into its happy precincts, none can barThe great cathedral open night and day.

God sent the children, happy careless things,Inconsequent as rabbits when they playOn some wild hillside at the close of day;Sporting with every toy Dame Fortune brings.Down the long corridor of memory ringsThe echo of their laughter blythe and gayAs through the glen they take their random wayGlancing and darting like the swallow wings.

Our Belgian boys, Joseph and little FranzAnd quiet-mannered Jean to take the lead;Fairy-dog Jack; kind Hommy with his cansWho gave his young life for his country’s need;Cherubic Sydney full of shepherd plansAnd Eileen ploughing with her painted steed.

The grave-eyed youngsters on the nest’s broad edge,Beneath the sheltered eaves sat day by day,While summer into autumn blazed away;And winter whispered through the garden hedgeWith hailstones rattled on the bronzing sedge.The anxious parents, keen to be away,Hunted and hawked for them till evening gray,But still the nestlings clung to that safe ledge.

Then from the clouds a radiant morning broke,And suddenly the Glen was full of wings,Tribe called to tribe, and quickly Nature spoke,Launching the young amid the whirling rings,Short flights, but daily lengthened, till we wokeTo find them gone—our darling feathered things.

Low rolls November’s sun along the hill,Dim grow the skies and early falls the dark,No music now from blackbird, thrush, or lark;Only the robin pipes his ditty still,While to the swallow’s nest above the sillNew tenants come to find a welcome ark,Where undisturbed by steps or Loki’s barkThey find a refuge in the storm-swept gill.

Like brown moths flitting in the dimsey light,Each evening brings them to our window view,And every morning as the dawn grows whiteThey fly their careful business to pursue,And thus secure from frost, or rain, or fright,The gentle wrens keep house the winter through.

A little woman in a brown silk bonnet,A little man in swallow-tails of green,The last Glen Aldyn fairies that were seen;’Tis truth I’m telling now, my hand upon it,And surely worth the tribute of a sonnet.Her blue check apron decked her like a queen,His buttons shone, and in his hand I weenHis cap he carried till he chose to don it.

Now in these glens you’ll find or late or soonThe Middle World is never far away,And one who saw these fairies says to-dayThat, through the waning glimpses of the moonThey used to come with footsteps nim’ney-pim’ney,And try to stuff Aunt Susan up the chimney!

It chanced the glen a fairy play essayed,The children like those fairies to be dressed,And Elsie’s nimble fingers took no rest’Till brown silk bonnets she had deftly madeAnd on the parlour table safely laid.That night the waking household was distressedBy whispering sounds within the chimney breast,Nor till cock-crowing daylight were they stayed.

They fired the chimney, set the traps, but stillNight after night the wistful sounds were heard—It was no windy draught, or mouse, or birdDisturbed our neighbours in the quiet gill,But—when they took the bonnets right awayThe whispering ceased—that’s all I have to say.

“We are the people of the Glen,” they said,And then, again, the Christmas darkness rangWith those old tuneful melodies they sang,While we a welcome in their music read.Swiftly the busy years have passed and fled,Nor could the parting be without a pangFrom all the kindliness and love which sprangTo meet us with a courtesy inbred.

O glen of roses, glen of mingling streams,Glen of the swallows and the tender wren.Glen of the children, glen of elfin dreams,That lay in mystery beyond our ken;Life all around us touched by faery gleams,We loved with you, dear People of the Glen!