Classic Poem

And after all 'twas snug and weather-tight,
His garret: that was much on such a night —
To be secure against the wind and sleet
At his age and not wandering the street,
A shuffling, shivering bag-of-bones.
And yet
Things would be snugger if he could forget
That bundle of old dripping rags that slouched
Before him down the Canongate, and crouched
Close to the swing-doors of the Spotted Cow.
Why, he could see that poor old sinner now,
Ay, and could draw him, if he'd had the knack
Of drawing anything — a steamy black
Dilapidation basking in the glare,
And sniffing with his swollen nose in air
To catch the hot reek when the door swings wide
And shows the glittering paradise inside,
Where men drink golden fire on seats of plush,
Lolling like gods: he stands there in the slush
Shivering, from squelching boots to sopping hat
One sodden clout, and blinking like a bat
Bedazzled by the blaze of light: his beard
Waggles and drips from lank cheeks pocked and seared;
And the whole dismal night about him drips,
As he stands gaping there with watering lips
And burning eyes in the cold sleety drench,
Afire with thirst that only death may quench.

Yet he had clutched that sixpence greedily
As if sixpennyworth of rum maybe
Would satisfy that thirst. Who knows! It might
Just do the trick perhaps on such a night,
And death would be a golden fiery drink
To that old scarecrow. 'Twould be good to think
His money'd satisfied that thirst, and brought
Rest to those restless fevered bones that ought
Long since to have dropped for ever out of sight.
It wasn't decent, wandering the night
Like that — not decent. While it lived it made
A man turn hot to see it, and afraid
To look it in the face, lest he should find
That bundle was himself, grown old and blind
With thirst unsatisfied.
He'd thirsted too
His whole life long, though not for any brew
That trickled out of taps in gaudy bars
For those with greasy pence to spend!
The stars
Were not for purchase, neither bought nor sold
By any man for silver or for gold.

Still, he was snug and sheltered from the storm:
He sat by his own hearth secure and warm,
And that was much indeed on such a night.
The little room was pleasant with the light
Glowing on lime-washed walls, kindling to red
His copper pots and, over the white bed,
The old torn Rembrandt print to golden gloom.
'Twas much on such a night to have a room —
Four walls and ceiling storm-tight overhead.
Denied the stars — well, you must spend instead
Your sixpences on makeshifts: life was naught
But toiling for the sixpences that bought
Makeshifts for stars.
'Twas snug, to hear the sleet
Lashing the panes and sweeping down the street
Towards Holyrood and out into the night
Of hills beyond. Maybe it would be white
On Arthur's Seat to-morrow, white with snow —
A white hill shining in the morning glow
Beyond the chimney-pots, that was a sight
For any man to see, a snowy height
Soaring into the sunshine. He was glad,
Though he must live in slums, his garret had
A window to the hills.
And he was warm,
Ay, snug and warm, shut in here from the storm.
The sixpences bought comfort for old bones
That else must crouch all night on paving-stones
Unsheltered from the cold.
'Twas hard to learn
In his young days that this was life — to earn
By lifelong labour just your board and bed,
Although the stars were singing overhead,
The Sons of Morning singing together for joy
As they had sung for every bright-eyed boy
With ears to hear since life itself was young —
And leave so much unseen, so much unsung.

He'd had to learn that lesson. 'Twas no good
To go star-gazing for a livelihood
With empty belly. Though he had a turn
For seeing things, when you have got to earn
Your daily bread first, there is little time
To paint your dream or set the stars to rhyme:
Nay, though you have the vision and the skill,
You cannot draw the outline of a hill
To please yourself, when you get home half-dead
After the day's work — hammers in your head
Still tapping, tapping. ...
Always mad to draw
The living shape of everything he saw,
He'd had to spend his utmost skill and strength
Learning a trade to live by, till at length
Now he'd the leisure the old skill was dead.
Born for a painter as it seemed, instead
He'd spent his life upholstering furniture.
'Twas natural enough men should prefer
Upholstery to pictures, and their ease
To little coloured daubs of cows and trees.
He didn't blame them, 'twas no fault of theirs
That they saw life in terms of easy chairs,
And heaven, like that old sinner in the slush,
A glittering bar upholstered in red plush.

'Twas strange to look back on it now, his life —
His father married to a second wife,
And home no home for him since he could mind,
Save when the starry vision made him blind
To all about him, and he walked on air
For days together, and without a care ...
But, as the years passed, seldomer they came,
Those starry dazzling nights and days aflame,
And oftener a sudden gloom would drop
Upon him, drudging all day in the shop
With his young brother John — John always gay,
Taking things as they came, the easy way,
Not minding overmuch if things went wrong
At home, and always humming a new song. ...

And then she came into his life and shook
All heaven about him: he had but to look
On her to find the stars within his reach.
But, ere his love had trembled into speech,
He'd waked one day to know that not for him
Were those bright living eyes that turned dreams dim —
To know that, while he'd worshipped, John and she
Had taken to each other easily. ...

But that was years ago ... and now he sat
Beside his lonely hearth: and they were fat —
Ay, fat and old they were, John and his wife,
And with a grown-up family. Their life
Had not been over-easy: they'd their share
Of trouble, ay, more than enough to spare;
But they had made the best of things and taken
Life as it came, with courage still unshaken.
They'd faced their luck, but never gone half-way
To meet fresh trouble. Life was always gay
For them between the showers: the roughest weather
Might do its worst — they always stood together
To bear the brunt, together stood their ground
And came through smiling cheerfully. They'd found
Marriage a hard-up happy business
Of hand-to-mouth existence more or less,
But, taking all in all, well worth their while
To look on the bright side of things and smile
When all went well, not fearing overmuch
When life was suddenly brought to the touch
And you'd to sink or swim. And they'd kept hold;
And even now, though they were fat and old,
They'd still a hearty grip on life. . . .
They'd be
Sitting there in their kitchen after tea
On either side the fireplace even now —
Jane with her spectacles upon her brow,
And nodding as she knitted, listening
While John in shirt-sleeves scraped his fiddle-string,
With one ear hearkening, lest a foot should stop
And some rare customer invade the shop
To ask the price of that old Flanders chest
Or oaken ale-house settle. . . .
They'd the best
Of life maybe together ...
And yet he —
Though he'd not taken life so easily,
Had always hated makeshifts more or less,
Grudging to swop the stars for sixpences,
And was an old man now with that old thirst
Unsatisfied — ay, even at the worst
He'd had his compensations, now and then
A starry glimpse, you couldn't work with men
And quite forget the stars. Though life was spent
In drudgery, it hadn't only meant
Upholstering chairs in crimson plush for bars ...
Maybe it gave new meaning to the stars,
The drudgery, who knows!
At least the rare
Wild glimpses he had caught at whiles were there.

Yet living in his mind. When much was dim
And drudgery forgotten, bright for him
Burned even now in memory old delights
That had been his in other days and nights.
He'd always seen, though never could express
His eyes' delight — or only more or less:
But things once clearly seen, once and for all
The soul's possessions, naught that may befall
May ever dim, and neither moth nor rust
Corrupt the dream that, shedding mortal dust,
Has soared to life and spread its wings of gold
Within the soul. . . .
And yet, when they were told,
These deathless visions, little things they seemed,
Though something of the beauty he had dreamed
Burned in them, something of his youth's desire ...

And, as he sat there gazing at the fire —
Once more he lingered, listening in the gloom
Of that great silent warehouse, in the room
Where stores were kept, one hand upon a shelf,
And heard a lassie singing to herself
Somewhere unseen without a thought who heard,
Just singing to herself like any bird
Because the heart was happy in her breast,
As happy as the day was long. At rest
He lingered, listening, and a ray of light
Streamed from the dormer-window up a height
Down on the bales of crimson cloth and lit
To sudden gold the dust that danced in it,
Till he was dazzled by the golden motes
That kept on dancing to those merry notes
Before his dreaming eyes, and danced as long
As he stood listening to the lassie's song. . . .

Then once again, his work-bag on his back,
He climbed that April morning up the track
That took you by a short cut through the wood
Up to the hilltop where the great house stood,
When suddenly beyond the firs' thick night
He saw a young fawn frisking in the light;

Shaking the dewdrops in a silver rain
From off his dappled hide, he leapt again
As though he'd jump out of his skin with joy.
With laughing eyes light-hearted as a boy,
He watched the creature, unaware of him,
Quivering with eager life in every limb,
Leaping and frisking on the dewy green
Beneath the flourish of the snowy gean,
While every now and then the long ears pricked
And budding horns as he leapt higher flicked
The drooping clusters of wild-cherry bloom,
Shaking their snow about him. From the gloom
Of those dark wintry firs his eyes had won
A sight of April sporting in the sun —
Young April leaping to its heart's delight
Among the dew beneath the boughs of white. . . .

And there'd been days among the hills, rare days
And rarer nights among the heathery ways —
Rare golden holidays when he had been
Alone in the great solitude of green
Wave-crested hills, a rolling, shoreless sea
Flowing for ever through eternity —
A sea of grasses, streaming without rest
Beneath the great wind blowing from the west,
Over which cloud-shadows sailed and swept away
Beyond the world's edge all the summer day.

The hills had been his refuge, his delight,
Seen or unseen, through many a day and night:
His help was of the hills, steadfast, serene
In their eternal strength, those shapes of green
Sublimely moulded.
Whatsoever his skill,
No man had ever rightly drawn a hill
To his mind — never caught the subtle curves
Of sweeping moorland with its dips and swerves —
Nor ever painted heather. . . .
Heather came
Always into his mind like sudden flame,
Blazing and streaming over stony braes
As he had seen it on that day of days
When he had plunged into a sea of bloom,
Blinded with colour, stifled with the fume
Of sun-soaked blossom, the hot heady scent
Of honey-breathing bells, and sunk content
Into a soft and scented bed to sleep;
And he had lain in slumber sweet and deep,
And only wakened when the full moon's light
Had turned the wavy sea of heather white:
And still he'd lain within the full moon-blaze
Hour after hour, bewildered and adaze
As if enchanted — in a waking swoon
He'd lain within the full glare of the moon
Until she seemed to shine on him alone
In all the world, as though his body'd grown
Until it covered all the earth and he
Was swaying like the moon-enchanted sea
Beneath that cold white witchery of light. . . .
And now, the earth itself, he hung in night
Turning and turning in the cold white glare
For ever and for ever. . . .
She was there —
There at his window now, the moon. The sleet
And wind no longer swept the quiet street.
And he was cold: the fire had burned quite low;
And while he'd dreamt there'd been a fall of snow.
He wondered where that poor old man would hide
His head to-night with thirst unsatisfied. . . .
His thirst, who knows! — but night may quench the thirst
Day leaves unsatisfied. . . .
Well, he must first
Get to his bed and sleep away the night
If he would rise to see the hills still white
In the first glory of the morning light.