‘Twos on a night, with sleet and snow,
From out the north a tempest blew,
When Thistle gathered nerve to go
The little Nettle’s self to woo.
Within her father’s cottage soon
He found the ever-dreaded maid;
She then was knitting to a tune
The wind upon the window played.
His errand known, she, with a frown,
Up from the oaken table sprung,
Down took the broom and swept the room,
While like a bell her clapper rung.
‘Have I not seen enough to be
Convinced for ever, soon or late,
The maid shall rue the moment she
Attendeth to a wooer’s prate?
‘How long ago since Phemie Hay
To Harry at the Mill fell wrong?
How long since Hall a prank did play
On silly Nelly Brown?—how long?
’How ago long ago since Adam Smith
Wooed Annie on the Moor, and left
The lassie with a stain? yea, with
A heart of every hope bereft?
‘But what need instance cases? lo!
Have I not heard thee chaunt the lay,
’The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leafy?' eh?
‘When men are to be trusted, then,
—But never may that time befall;
Of five times five-and-twenty men,
There’s barely five are men at all.
‘Before the timid maid they’ll fall,
And smile and weep and sigh and sue,
Till once they get her in their thrall,
And then she’s doomed her lot to rue.
‘For her a subtle snare they weave,
And when the bonny bird is caught,
Then, then they giggle in their sleeve;
Then laugh to scorn the ill they’ve wrought.
‘As other weary winds, they woo
The bloom its treasures to unfold;
Extract its wealth—their way pursue,
And leave her pining on the wold.
’When poppies fell like lilies smell,
When cherries grow on brambles, when—
When grapes adorn the common thorn,
Then women may have faith in men.
‘Then may we hear what they may swear;
Till then, sir, know I’m on my guard,
And he, the loon that brings me down,
He, he’ll be pardoned, on my word.’
Thus for an hour her tongue was heard;
By this, her words grown faint and few,
She raised the broom at every word,
And thumped the floor to prove it true.
In ardent words the youth replied:—
‘Dread hollow-hearted guile thou must;
But deem not all of honour void,
Nor punish all with thy mistrust.
’A few, not all, the lash have earn’d,
Let but that few the lash assail;
The world were topsy-turvy turned,
Did not some sense of right prevail.
‘Destroy the weed, but spare the flower;
Consume the chaff, but keep the grain;
Nor harry one who’d die before
He’d give thy little finger pain.’
On hearing this, she sat her down,
Took up her needlework again,
And tho’ she strove to wear a frown,
Made answer in a milder strain.
‘Forego thy quest. Deceitful words
May yet, as they have been, may be,
A fatal lure to lighter birds;
They’ll never prove the like to me.
‘Still by my chastity I vow,
As I have kept the cheat at bay,
So, should I keep my senses, so
I’ll keep him till my dying day.
‘The best that man can do or say,
The love of gold or rubies rare,—
Not all that wealth can furnish, may
Once lure to leave me in a snare.
’So end thy quest.' He only prest
His ardent suit the more, while she
At every word he uttered, garr’d
Her fleeing needles faster flee.
‘My quest by honour’s justified
I long have eyed and found thee still
The maid I’d like to be my bride;
Would I could say the maid that will.
‘Hadst thou but been a daffodil
That with the breezes sport and play,
For all thy suitor valued, still
Thou so hadst danced thy life away.
’But thou so fair art chaste.' Thus he
Unto her answer answers e’er,
And that too in a way that she
Must will or nill his answer hear.
And then a chair he’d taken, his chair
Unto her side he nearer drew;
Recurred to memories sweet and rare,
And in a softer key did woo.
‘Must all the passion which I’ve sought
So long to hide be paid with scorn?
A heart with pure affection fraught
Be doomed a hopeless love to mourn?
‘And must thou still its homage spurn?
And must thou still my suit reject?
And be to me this cruel thorn?
Reflect upon the past, reflect!
’A time there was, and time shall pass
To me ere that forgotten be,
When side by side from tide to tide
We played and sported on the lea.
‘Ay, then have I not chased the bee
From bloom to bloom—oft chased and
caught,
And having drawn its sting in glee,
To thee the little body brought?
’Then when a bloom of rarer dyes
Into my busy fingers fell,
To whom was reached the lucky prize?
Can not thy recollection tell?
‘As oft away as summer went,
Who pulled with thee the haw, bright,
brown—
Brown as thy own bright eyes—and bent
For thee the richest branches down?
’With blooms I’ve graced thy yellow hair,
With berries filled thy lap, thy hand,—
That hand as alabaster fair—
Had every gift at my command.
‘Nay, tho’ to others dour, yet meek
I ever was to thee, and kind,
And when we played at hide-and-seek,
I hid where thou would’st seek to find
‘Upon the play-ground still unmatched
Was I, unless my loved one played:
And then it seem’d to those who watched,
My failures were on purpose made.
‘As sure as e’er a race began,
The palm was mine unless she joined,
And then I always was out-ran,
For still with her I lagged behind.
‘The ball I drove to others, mocked
Their efforts to arrest its flight;
But when my ball to her was knocked,
It would upon her lap alight.
’None, up and down so well I bobbed,
To skip the rope with me would try;
Did she attempt? my skill was robbed;
Another skipped her out—not I.
‘At play thus wasn’t; but childhood past,
And e’er the lasses reach their teens,
Atween them and the lads a vast
Mysterious distance intervenes.
‘They seldom on the green appear
In careless sport and play; and if
They join the throng erect they wear
Their head, and still their air is stiff—
’They ail they know not what. And such
The change that on my lassie fell
Then would she shrink my hand to touch,
And I half feared her touch as well.
‘Had I changed too? This, I can tell,—
That touch o’er me a spell would cast;
And did I pass her in the dell,
With slow and snail-like pace I pass’d.
‘Her voice had lost its former ring,
Yet, in that voice such power was flung,
I better liked to hear her sing,
Than when of old to me she sung.
’Her touch, her tone, would make or mar
My bliss, and tho’ with all my skill
I strove to please, and please but her,
I in her presence blundered still.
‘When by the hearth she sewing sat,
Did I to thread her needle try?
Still, still my heart played pit-a-pat,
And still I miss’d the needle’s eye.
‘As with the needle-threading, so
We with the skein a-winding fared,
And Auntie’s dreaded tongue would go
Before the dancing end appeared.
‘What ails the lass?’ she often said—
'She’s sound asleep!' once said, and flew,
And snatched and snapt the tangled thread,
While I—I know not how—withdrew.
‘Away, too, fled those hours! Alack!
They came and went like visions rare,
To mock the heart, delude and wrack,
And leave the gazer in despair.
’Ah, less—tho’ sun-illumed—less fair
The blobs that dance adown the burn,
And let them burst they’ll re-appear
Ere those delightsome hours return.
‘Yet they may live in thought, and could
They live in Nettle’s thought again,
Would she not change her bearing? would—
Would she not change this bitter strain?
‘Would she her lover still disdain
Would she continue thus to gall
And put him to this cruel pain?—
Recall to mind the past, recall!’
Thus onward, on, his ditty flows,
Until—her ruffled brow is sleek,
Till, lo! the lily drives the rose,
The rose the lily from her cheek.
And now the iron, sparkling hot,
Around with might and main he swings,
And down upon the proper spot
With bang on bang the hammer brings
‘O, be my suit but undenied,
And, ere the moon is on the wane,
A knot shall by the priest be tied,
The priest shall never loose again.
’In heart and hand excelled by none,
Henceforth I’d front the ills of life;
And every victory I won
Should be a jewel for my wife.
‘So should the people of the dell,
When they convened to gossip, say
For harmony we bore the bell—
And bore it with a grace away.
’Nay, lift thy head, be not ashamed,
If thus to feel—and thus, and O:—
As matters sinful might be blamed,
Our saints were sinners long ago.’
Deep silence here ensued. The cat,
That lately to the nook had crept
To mark the sequel of their chat,
Came forth—lay on the hearth and slept.
The needles bright, that left and right,
As if with elfish glee possest,
Had gleamed and glanced, and frisked and
danced,
In quiet on her apron rest.
In concert with the storm within,
The storm without forbears to blow;
And 'tween the sailing clouds, begin
The joyous stars to come and go.
O’er all delight and silence brood,
While to her wooer’s bosom prest,
Poor Nettle’s heart beats, beats aloud
The tune that pleases lovers best.
And Thistle’s pleased and Thistle’s blest,
And Thistle’s is a joy supreme;
Aye! now of Nettle’s smiles possest,
He revels in a golden dream.
Dream on, brave youth:—An hour like this
Annuls an age of cark and strife,
And turns into a drop of bliss
The bitter cup of human life.
The tear is by a halo gilt,
The thorns of life are turned to flowers,
The dirge into a merry lilt,
When love returned for love is ours.
‘I’ve heard,' in language low and soft,
Now Nettle’s heart begins to flow;—
I’ve heard of honey’d tongues full oft,
But never felt their force till now.
‘Still would I fume, as day by day
I’ve seen the lasses bought and sold
By some I’d scorn’d to own, had they
Outweighed their very weight in gold.
‘My hour of triumph’s o’er. In vain
Did I my fellow-maids abuse;
I’ve snatched the cup, and drank the bane
Which sets me in their very shoes;
‘That turns a heart of adamant
To pliant wax; and, in my turn,
Subjects me to the bitter taunt,
The vanquished victor’s ever borne:
‘That leaveth Nettle satisfied
To leave her kith and kin, and by
Her ever-faithful Thistle’s side,
To shelter till the day they die.’
Other works by Joseph Skipsey...
