Embers, Complete. Gilbert Parker

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ handful left from very many handfuls destroyed. Since the first edition (intended only for my personal friends) was published I have written “Rosleen,” “Where Shall We Betake Us?” “Granada,” “Mary Callaghan and Me,” “The Crowning” (on the Coronation of King Edward VII), the fragment “Kildare” and “I Heard the Desert Calling”; and I have also included others like “The Tall Dakoon” and “The Red Patrol,” written over twenty years ago. “Mary Callaghan and Me” has been set to music by Mr. Max Muller, and has made many friends, and “The Crowning” was the Coronation ode of ‘The People’, which gave a prize, too ample I think, for the best musical setting of the lines. Many of the other pieces in ‘Embers’ have been set to music by distinguished composers like Sir Edward Elgar, who has made a song-cycle of several, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Mr. Arthur Foote, Mrs. Amy Woodforde Finden, Robert Somerville, and others. The first to have musical setting was “You’ll Travel Far and Wide,” to which in 1895 Mr. Arthur Foote gave fame as “An Irish Folk Song.” Like “O Flower of All the World,” by Mrs. Amy Woodforde Finden, it has had a world of admirers, and such singers as Mrs. Henschel helped to make Mr. Foote’s music loved by thousands, and conferred something more than an ephemeral acceptance of the author’s words.

      When thou comest to the safe tent of the good comrade,

       abide there till thy going forth with a stedfast mind; and

       if, at the hospitable fire, thou hast learned the secret of a

       heart, thou shalt keep it holy, as the North Wind the

       trouble of the Stars.

PROEM

       Table of Contents

      And the Angel said:

       “What hast thou for all thy travail—

       what dost thou bring with thee out

       of the dust of the world?”

       And the man answered:

       “Behold, I bring one perfect yesterday!”

       And the Angel questioned:

       “Hast thou then no to-morrow?

       Hast thou no hope?”

       And the man replied:

       “Who am I that I should hope!

       Out of all my life I have been granted one

       sheaf of memory.”

       And the Angel said:

       “Is this all!”

       And the man answered:

       “Of all else was I robbed by the way:

       but Memory was hidden safely

       in my heart—the world found it not.”

ROSLEEN

       Table of Contents

      “She’s the darlin’ of the parish, she’s the pride of

       Inniskillen;

       ’Twould make your heart lep up to see her trippin’

       down the glen;

       There’s not a lad of life and fame that wouldn’t take

       her shillin’

       And inlist inside her service-did ye hear her laughin’

       then?

       Did ye see her with her hand in mine the day that

       Clancy married?

       Ah, darlin’, how we footed it-the grass it was so

       green!

       And when the neighbours wandered home, I was the

       guest that tarried,

       An hour plucked from Paradise—come back to me,

       Rosleen!

       Across the seas, beyand the hills, by lovely Inniskillen,

       The rigiment come marchin’—I hear the call once

       more

       Shure, a woman’s but a woman—so I took the Sergeant’s

       shillin’,

       For the pride o’ me was hurted—shall I never see

       her more?

       She turned her face away from me, and black as night

       the land became;

       Her eyes were jewels of the sky, the finest iver seen;

       She left me for another lad, he was a lad of life and

       fame,

       And the heart of me was hurted—but there’s none

       that’s like Rosleen!”

WILL YOU COME BACK HOME?

       Table of Contents

      Will you come back home, where the young larks are

       singin’?

       The door is open wide, and the bells of Lynn are ringin’;

       There’s a little lake I know,

       And a boat you used to row

       To the shore beyond that’s quiet—will you come back

       home?

       Will you come back, darlin’? Never heed the pain and

       blightin’,

       Never trouble that you’re wounded, that you bear the

       scars of fightin’;

       Here’s the luck o’ Heaven to you,

       Here’s the hand of love will brew you

       The cup of peace—ah, darlin’, will you come back

       home?

MARY СКАЧАТЬ