The Bird Of Ellerslee - Canto I Poem by Timothy Thomas Fortune

Ralph Bondly was Misfortune's child;
The gods on him but seldom smiled;
Yet he possessed the wealth men crave
As greatest boon this side the grave.
Restless as tides that come and go,
In Summer's calm or Winter's blow,
Something he sought and longed to grasp,
But ever failed its form to clasp.

In every land his feet had strayed;
He 'neath Italian skies had prayed,
And scoffed beneath the Othman's sign,
And loitered by the Seine and Rhine;
Siberian snows had swept his face
Where Afric's sun had left its trace;
But nowhere what he sought for found,
Though present oft to sight and sound.
E'en Europe gave him no relief
From gnawings of his nameless grief—
From tortured Self, the worst of foes
That breed Delusion's endless woes.
Delusion! O, who has not chased
Some Phantom through Life's trackless waste!

And there were times when Bondly's hate
Embraced the world, e'en cursing Fate!
At other times he felt not so,
But free, forsooth, to come and go,
To mingle with the social throng,
And lend himself to dance and song.
Some relaxation from the law
That governs life we all must draw,
Forget in Pleasure's treasured hour,
Perhaps in Beauty's charming bower,
The speedy coming of the morrow,
With its vain hopes and toil and sorrow!
O Life! O Death! We well may cry,
Who, dying, live, and living, die!

Ralph Bondly loved the solitude
Of mountain high and leafy wood;
The dreamy silence soothed his brain
And robbed his nerves of numbing pain.
And yet he shunned not womankind,
Nor to their queenly charms was blind.
And he was learned in the lore
The seers of eld have placed in store,
From which may draw all who incline
To drink of Wisdom's thoughts divine;
And he was eloquent of speech,
Since versed in all the schools could teach;
And if the social theme he led,
Or dance, or song, 'twas never said
That he was vain. From Vanity—
The meanest thing beneath the sky!—
From vain display of Self, he shrank,
As do all men of noble rank—
The masters of the world, the strong,
The brave, their weaker kind among.

His voice was sweet as music sung
By sirens when the world was young;
And he could sing as only they
Who have been bathed in heavenly spray.
The thoughtful noted with what care
Ralph Bondly bore his earthly share;
How firm he was, how gentle, too,
In all that he did say and do—
Precise, methodical. No mask
He wore, not he, whate'er the task
Assigned him in the day's just claim,
In Duty's e'er exacting name.

He was a riddle to the few
Who dwelt about him and he knew;
But to the gossip-loving crowd
He seemed but over-lordly, proud—
So proud he could have worn a crown,
Or, on a broader field, renown
In war's brave game or walks of peace,
Snatched from the hands of sluggard ease!
And none who sought them found the flaws
That mark a break in Nature's laws—
Shown most in conduct of the fools,
Earth's dunces on their little stools,
The noisy creatures of the hour,
Who scream for honor and for power.
Yet many failed the man to read,
Who gave to them such little heed.
The idle gossips of the earth—
'Tis strange why they were given birth!
They fill a place, 'tis true. But, why?
And thereby hangs a mystery!

Action, on life's strenuous field,
To do and dare, to never yield,
A soldier's duty is, or high
Or low the place whence he may fly
The standard of humanity!
No steel of isolation must
Within the human heart be thrust
And there remain, for it will kill
The stoutest heart that hope may thrill;
Yet such had been Ralph Bondly's fate—
To love the world and reap its hate.

Many there are who deem him blest
Upon whose slender shoulders rest
The weight of birth and wealth and fame,
The well-filled purse, the titled name,
Unheeding that the wise and strong—
Warrior, statesman, child of song—
Fall, as the humblest fall, borne down
By burdens all too heavy grown,
And even in Life's glorious prime
And long ere man's allotted time!
The lowly grumble at their fate
And have but curses and fierce hate
For those who rise above them far,
The chosen leaders in Life's war,
The valiant captains in the race,
Who reap the honors of the chase!
Forsooth, the wisest men agree
That wealth and power bring misery,
Bring cares the humble poor ne'er know
In Summer's sun or Winter's snow!
'Uneasy lies the head that wears
'A crown!' 'Tis filled with cares and fears!
Likewise the head upon a stone,
Reaping the whirlwind it has sown;
The head of him who plays the fool
Is tortured, too, by Nature's rule;
The head with learning stored, though proud,
Is restless oft, in sorrow bowed,
From garnering where some other head
Has sown the seed its blood had fed.
Masters of science and of art,
And speakers to the head and heart,
And bards who make all earth their prize
Seeking sometimes to pierce the skies—
How often in the lap of Fame
Their heads lie sleepless, the frail frame
Wasting to speedy death, while yet
Uncanceled is Life's honest debt!

We seek contentment here in vain!
There are in earth but woe and pain!
Or wealth or transient power or fame
Or outcast without home or name—
Back to the dust all mortals go
And vanish as a mimic show!
What boots the place to us assigned
In matter gross or God-like mind!
What boots if rags or furs are ours
To blunt the edge of Winter's powers?
The shepherd's hut, the prince's hall—
The two extremes of earth's grim thrall—
What matters where we sleep when locked
In earth's embrace, by grim Death shocked?

When he no longer cared to roam
Ralph Bondly came and made his home
Amid the glories of the South,
Where seldom comes a blighting drouth;
The magic land of sweetest flowers
That ever bloomed in Nature's bowers;
Where songs of birds fill all the trees
That blossom in the tropic breeze,
With melody divine. Fair land
Of chivalry and song, thy wand
Has touched with more than wizard power
The pulse that ruled the Nation's hour!
A land as rich in womankind,
In royal maiden charms that blind
By dazzlement the human mind,
As ever bard of old had found
Upon Enchantment's vanished ground!
He came, but why and whence, to dwell
With strangers all, no one could tell;
He deigned no word to speak but this:
'A British Earl!' That must suffice!

Ralph Bondly's home was all that heart
Could wish, or lavish wealth and art
Combined could body forth in form
To kiss the sun or brave the storm!
A glorious mansion, where was caught
The gloom its lord so long had fought;
And you could trace a master's hand
In every line the builders planned
Through all the palace, sombre, vast,
That 'gainst the sky its shadows cast.
Rich fields and wooded acres wide
And gardens fair in flowery pride
Held fast the eye—for in design
And richness they were most divine!
Here, hidden from all prying eyes,
Beneath the fairest, balmiest skies,
Where merriment of carnival
Was never heard in room or hall,
But silent, closed against the world,
Which e'er around him surged and swirled—
Here dwelt Ralph Bondly in his prime,
As princes dwell beyond our clime,
In grand but isolated state—
A child of sorrow and of hate,
The offspring of a loveless twain
That he would never see again!

His spacious mansion, his domain,
That stretched o'er hill and dale and plain;
The thousand slaves that claimed him lord,
And breathless hung upon his word;
The pleasures of the field and chase,
The ruling passion of his race;
And piscatorial toils—he cared
For these, and in their joyance shared.
And if he loved the solitude
Of mountain peaks or leafy wood,
Where silence held eternal reign,
And found forgetfulness of pain
Therein, shall he be charged with pride
And vanity? Not so! 'Twere well
If in such scene his heart could swell,
Responsive to great Nature's voice,
Which, silent e'en, bids us rejoice!
If by some gurgling, murmuring stream
He could forget himself and dream
Of happy days sometime to be,
Why grudge him such felicity?
He worshipped Nature—'twas his god—
Worshipped the air, the trees, the sod,
And all the living things that brood
And breathe in forest's solitude.

All knew his famous country seat,
For such a man a fit retreat;
And many sighed to own the prize,
Which was a bauble in his eyes.
The country people canvassed well
All that was his or him befell.

Did they not envy him? Oh, no!
But what he owned. 'Twas ever so!
His gloom of mind they feared; and none
Desired his hermit life to share,
His seeming load of endless care!
'Tis always true that Life's hard yoke
Will e'en the stoutest heart provoke!
Do what we will, the smiles and tears
Go hand in hand with hopes and fears!
The changeless laws of Nature, Life,
Ordain in all that ceaseless strife
Prevail; so, what the world to-day
Proclaims and worships, falls away
When comes another morrow morn—
Discarded for some newer horn,
Some newer toy, more pleasing yet—
And that it, too, will soon forget!
The rich man, poor man, and the fool,
Attend alike Delusion's school!
Each fondly dreams, in some new way,
His vagrant thoughts, where'er they stray,
Will lead him to the fount of youth,
Or to the well of endless truth,
Or to the gold and diamonds hid
Beneath the earth's unyielding lid!
Like the dread sword of Damocles,
Their hopes are strung on hairs the breeze
Will strain and snap, so frail the thread,
And leave them mangled, bleeding, dead!
And many die in reaching after
That which provokes but honest laughter—
So absurd are some things men chase
Through all of Life's exciting race—
While others, without striving, find
All that they seek, and would, if blind!

Bondly was not devout in creeds;
But many knew him such in deeds.
'Ye have the poor always,' He said,
Who followed where the Father led!
He knew that life is like a flower
That blooms in sweetness in morn's hour,
And droops and withers when the day
In royal splendor fades away!
He did not strive to bridge the gaps
In Nature's large and varied maps,
But left them as he found them, sure
They would be there forevermore!
The music of a brook was sweet,
As, dreaming on a mossy seat,
He watched the waters rush away
To some reposeful, land-locked bay;
He loved the odor of a rose,
The loveliest flower that ever grows,
And violets, by the dews caressed,
Sweet-scented, in their wildwood nest;
The baying of his hounds in chase,
The fox afar, would flush his face.

And what is love, but death? Although
The parent of all life, we know,
'Tis still the parent of decay—
But blood to blood and clay to clay!
And is it well to love that death
May fatten on the vital breath!
Oh, life of death! Oh, death of life!
In all of earth ye breed but strife.

Ralph Bondly often thought had he
Some queen of earth with him to be,
To share his life and wealth, a mate,
He would not ask for more of Fate;
But put the thought away in fear,
As something fatal all too near!
It could not be! His path must still
Be lone and sad! It was God's will!
'Twas his allotted share. But—Why?
So all the sons of Adam cry
When longed-for bliss the Fates deny!
Yet Bondly would have lain his head
Against a heart that ne'er had bled
Except in pity for such woe
As only noble souls can know,
When love has lit the deathless flame
That burns undimmed, fore'er the same!
But he had never loved—ne'er felt
The sternness of his nature melt
Into the tenderness that He
Showed Mary at far Bethany!
'Yes; love indeed is light from heaven,
The sweetest boon to mortals given!'

Three years had come and gone since he,
The stranger lord, at Ellerslee,
Had made his home, fair Bondly Hall—
His pride—his neighbors' pride withal;
And he a stronger man had grown,
And dreamed he might yet claim his own;
The earth became a fairer place
In all its matchless charm and grace;
A newer life was his to live,
With power to nobler thoughts to give
The active force of soul and mind,
As he had always been inclined.
A wise seaman distrusts the clouds,
Floating above, like myriad shrouds,
Although the waters of the sea
In placid slumber all may be;
He knows the storm is coming fast,
To strain his spars, to strain his mast,
Until the ship shall creak and groan,
While round him wild winds sigh and moan!
But Bondly revelled in the calm—
To him 'twas more than magic balm—
As boys disport them in the sun
When Spring, fierce Winter's season run,
Has chased the snows to Alpine heights
To glisten in the moon's pale nights!
The future was remote, unknown;
The present, ah! it was his own!

We do not estimate how much
A limb is worth until a crutch
Has ta'en its place, shattered by shell
Or shot or knife in war's fierce hell;
Nor know how dear is Fatherland
Until we tread a foreign strand,
And strangers mingle with, and hear
Words that confuse the anxious ear;
We do not prize the glorious sun
Until the frost its work has done,
In killing every flower and leaf,
And filling all the earth with grief;
The precious gem possessed, the cost
Outrageous seems, until 'tis lost;
And past misfortunes do not teach
There are some things beyond our reach.
Yes, there was balsam in the air
That gave to Bondly courage rare.
Close by his favorite silvery stream,
He sat him down to dream and dream,
While Nature's smile, pervading all,
Presaged a future bright withal!
So vigorous manhood feels its power,
When no black clouds above it lower.
And moments of depression still
Come to us all, and ever will;
But from despair a strength we gain
That makes our living not in vain!

'Life is a curse!' Ralph Bondly mused—
To whom the gods so much refused;
'Nor can the poet's gentle song,
'Of love and hate, of right and wrong;
'Nor braggart's swagger; nor wealth's joys,
'With all the ills that wealth destroys;
'Nor wedding bells, where grim despair
'Rides on a fairy in the air;
'Nor incantations of the wise,
'That rule the lightnings from the skies
'And what beneath earth's surface lies—
'Make blessings of the curse! Eden,
'Thy awful curse still rests on men!
'We laugh and sing this hour; we weep
'The next, and groan, and, perchance, die!
'And what is death—the hidden hand
'Lifted 'gainst life in every land!
'I do not know, and never knew
'One who could read the riddle true,
'The present and the future state,
'The one we love, the one we hate!
'And no man in the ages past,
'In tropic sun or Arctic blast,
'Has grown one single inch withal
'Since the dread hour of Adam's fall,
'By railing at the laws that rule
'Alike the wise man and the fool!
'Man's stature steadily has grown
'Shorter as Time has swiftly flown
'Toward the desolation of the earth
'And dread cessation of all birth!
'As life began with giants, may
'It not wind up with pigmies, pray,
'Or creatures smaller yet—so small
'That they cannot be seen at all!
'In truth, the pathway to the sky
'Runs o'er rough fields and mountains high!
'From whence we came we do not know,
'Nor to what destiny we go;
'Knowledge stops here and science gropes
'And Faith fills in the void with hopes!
'The mountain streams of ice and snow
'At last into the ocean flow
'And form a part thereof; but man—
'Whence came he and, pray, whither goes
'When o'er his grave the willow grows?
'The flesh returns to earth; the mind—
'Does it become part of the wind?
'Does Reason vanish with the breath
'That yields—resisting still—to Death?
'And so we live, and so we die,
'Victims of whence, of whither, why?'