We bore her body slowly to the grave
        On royal purple as befits a queen,
    And o’er her pall, with crosses white between,
Were broidered flowers the Lenten season gave,
Gold as her heart was gold.  Few words and
        brave
    We said; then laid her where the mosses green
    Made for the wounded earth a gentle screen,
And sang above her sleep by Brathay’s wave.

And when the river, golden from the west
    Ran down the purple vale, and Hesperus
        Hung bright o’er Wetherlam, we came to weep,
But in such bridal robes the grave was drest,
    Such gracious flowers looked peacefully at us,
        We well-nigh felt our sorrow share her sleep.

(Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 158)

Hits: 5214

Captain Peel

Did you know our Captain Peel?
Such a face to give command,
Full of thought, clear-chiselled, fair!
Such a wealth of wavy hair
O’er a forehead high and square!
Such broad shoulders! but a hand
Like a woman’s, and soft eyes
Bluest-grey as English skies,
Though they flamed and flashed like steel
When he made his swift replies;
Such a brow to feel the rush
Of the heart’s blood, with the blush
Of a girl! but mouth firm-set;
Peel, we never can forget,
Kind to man and kind to beast,
Loving greatest in the least,
Iron-willed, but tender-sweet,
Gentle-hearted to the core;
Peel, the darling of the fleet!
Peel, the hero of the shore!

Have you heard how Captain Peel,
Of the “Excellent,” excelled
All excelling, for his grace;
The dear honour of our fleet,
Made the name of Captain sweet
For all sailor souls that feel?
Have your hearts not beat to learn
How at sea in dirty weather,
In his cabin at the stern,
He heard the fateful cry
“Lower boat, man overboard,” 
Saw a man go flashing by,
Smite the waters, disappear,
And, well knowing the ship’s pace
By the furrow foaming free,
Never stayed to loose his sword,
Knew his duty plain and clear
From the port-hole on the lee
Sprang right out into the sea,
Caught the drowning man, and cried,
“Hold on fast! whate’er betide
We will sink or swim together,
Man and captain side by side?”
And the crew were unaware,
Thought their captain sitting there
In his cabin; came to tell
How the “main-top” seaman fell;
But they little knew his care
For the drowner at his need,
Till the boat alongside came,
Then they felt their hearts aflame
For the daring and the deed!

Have they told you, how he fought
On the bitter upland height,
Where the Russian gunners wrought
Hurt and havoc, day and night:
Where death mined and countermined
With the subtlety of hell,
And the wit of devil-kind,
And fierce sickness, more than shell,
Was the slayer in the fight?

Have you heard how Peel was then
Hope and heart for all our men?
How, a hero to the core
Through the nine long months he bore
Head erect, and never blenched,
While the sailors sapped and trenched,
And the bullets hailed around,
And the red shot ploughed the ground;
How, where fiercest death-shower burst,
With his gabion ever first,
Eyes to see and mind to feel
For all round, was gallant Peel,
Swift to succour, sure to plan,
Heart and soul of every man,
Full in front of the Redan.

Have you heard how on a day,
When our battery blazed away
From its twenty-one gun-throats,
And the “Diamond” sent her boats
With fresh powder for the fray,
Through our parapet there came
A live shell with fuse aflame,
While our powder-boxes round
Lay all open on the ground;
And we knew our end had come,
And we flung ourselves in fear
To the dust we soon should be,
Thought of God, and thought of home,
—England far across the sea,
Almost glad that death was near
On our faces as we fell,
Seeing death should set us free
From the Russian shot and shell?

But our gallant Captain Peel
Caught the monster in his hand,
Cool of head, and nerved like steel,
Heaved the bomb upon his chest,
Rolled it o’er the rampart crest,
And we heard his clear command
“To your guns, and do the rest,
They have given us of their worst
Let us pay them with our best!”
And beyond the earthwork’s breast
Lo, the forty pounder burst!

On the uplands grim and grey,
Full in front of the Redan, 
Where our English life-blood ran
Into purple Russian clay,
Now the war-mounds melt away,
And the walls are in decay,
And the trenches on the hill,
Once so loud, are hushed and still,
And the blood in battle spilt
Blooms to poppy, grows to wheat;
But the battery we built
And we called the “Koh-i-nor”
For the “Diamond’s” Captain, meet,
Shall be honoured more and more,
There the name of Peel is sweet
As it was in days of yore—
Peel, the darling of the fleet!
Peel, the hero of the shore!

(Ballads of Brave Deeds, p. 4).

Hits: 5363

“We will show ourselves now,” said the keeper, “but go quietly,” and creeping up the warm sand, I found myself on the edge of a miniature crater, whose edges were sand hills and tussock grass, filled with white lily flowers, and whose floor seemed to be tapestried or carpeted with purple and green.  The green I found on nearer view to be young nettles, the purple, thousands upon tens of thousands of wild pansies. (pp. 43-4)

In a moment the while lilies became a multitude of wings, and in another moment one involuntarily put one’s hands up to protect one’s head and eyes, so furiously, and with such a scream of savagery, did the blackheads sweep at one.  The whole air quivered, and while the words that the gulls close beside me were saying seemed to be distinctly a shrill “gëet-away! gëet away!” that was half hiss and scream, the sound of the distant flock of fearful creatures could only be compared to the angry sound of steam an express engine makes when it comes to a sudden standstill beneath a resonant station roof. (p. 44)

I could not wonder.  Here at my feet lay tiny fluffy things of golden tabby colour, there in a heap of tussock grass three olive brown eggs.  Just beyond two squabs four days old had left their nest and hid in the grass, and here another ten days old, with the blue quill feathers showing, who had changed from tabby to grey, went scuttling away till it fell head foremost, picked itself up, and fell again in its haste to be off. (p. 44)

Down on the sandy slope, another looking as one might suppose a fleet-footed dromedary would look among the sand dunes of the Arabian desert, if one were high up in a balloon, was running for dear life, and Egypt came once again to mind.  If one had but known black-headed gull language, one might have appealed to them to recognise the likeness, for many of these birds had probably wintered on the banks of the Nile.  The nests were here, there, and everywhere, (pp. 44-5)

It was with real difficulty that one avoided treading upon nest or tabby chicks as one followed one’s guide, but what struck one was the way in which there on the edge of the crater, at its most exposed part, the bids had nested, preferring the chance of quick look-out to shelter from the wind. (p. 45)

The variety, both of egg size and egg colour, was astonishing.  Three was the usual number of eggs.  Four were rarely seen in one nest.  The nests varied much in size and shape.  Here one builder had taken much trouble to arrange her bunch of tussock, here again close by a more careless mother had been content with the work of a few hours in preparing its cradle.  We passed quickly along to a dune, where the nests seemed to be fewer in number, and then ceased.  Suddenly my eyes caught sight of what looked in the distance like lumps of chalk on the bare sand.  Lying singly or in pairs, a near view showed that the chalk lumps were beautifully mottled with black and brown, larger they seemed in size than the olive green jewels we had seen in the caskets of the black-headed gulls. (pp. 45-6)

“Here,” said the keeper, “are the Sandwich tern’s eggs, and as I told you, see what a number they have  broken: it’s a curious thing, and no one, I think, can explain it.  It isn’t the ‘jacks,’ that I am sure of, though they are the greatest thieves the black-heads have to contend with.”

“No,” said I, “the jackdaws are not to blame; it is, I think, the casual habit the bird has of laying its single egg in another nest that is to blame; at least that is a possible explanation.” (p. 46)

All this while the cloud of wings thickened above us.  The black-headed gulls had seemed to come to the relief of the handful of these graceful associates, and as fork-tailed mothers swung back and forward overhead, clear above the hissing scream and the chuck, chuck of the gull, came the shrill “Kirhitt! Kirhitt! Kirhitt!” of the Sandwich tern. (p. 46)

Back through the purple violas, and the red dwarf sorrel; back by the golden sand dunes and the blue shining mussel-covered beach we came, and still the gulls tossed and screamed in heaven, and though our hands were clean and our conscience untroubled by intent to harm, we felt verily guilty concerning our brother gull and sister tern, for all the needless anxieties we had caused them by being in the shape of man. (p. 46)

(Round the Lake Country, pp. 38-46)

Hits: 5400

Your headmaster had struck a right note in his report to-night when he said that this war ought to stimulate us to greater effort in the educational world, ought to make us willing for greater sacrifices than in the past, in order to turn our men and women who will carry on the traditions of empire by having eyes open to perceive the need of educated heads and hearts, and hands, and eyes, if we are to hand on that empire intact and in peace and well meaning.  This brings me to ask the parents as well as the scholars to consider the difference between the education of Germany and Great Britain.  If we do not win in this war we shall have German methods thrust upon us.  Nothing is more to be deprecated than the cast-iron regime of the German educational world.  The mailed fist is felt both in school and college, and though it is true, in the opinion of experts, that the average standard of intellectual attainment in a German primary or secondary school is higher than in our own country the boasted “zildung” is more than counterbalanced by the fact that a sense of initiative is lost and a sense of individual-mindedness is suppressed and individuality of character is stifled.  It is not too much to say that this war is indirectly the result of German Kultur begun in the primary schools, for the German child has been trained not so much to think for himself as to take without question the views and opinions of his master.  There is in the German mind a curious delight in getting hold of a formula and making the facts of life fit into it rather than in getting facts and fitting a formula to them.  Hence if the teacher asserts that the individual is nothing but the State is everything, that the “will-to-power” is everything, and the will to serve nothing, that war is the supreme civilising agency, that might is right, that the military caste must decide and all must toe the line, you can see for yourselves how these ideas do breed a race of youth who when they come to manhood will with the motto of Deutschland Euber Alles and with the belief that everything that is German is good and everything that is not German is inferior or bad, be certain to attempt a world-dominion.

There is evidence that swelled heads and political donkeydom is the fruit of German education, and when we know from writers of repute how the State and the Prussian military caste have used both school and college for its own ends and the teaching of its own gospel we see that the only chance of freedom in Germany is a new conception of education nearer to our own British conception namely, the slow waking to life of the idea that scholars must begin from their earliest times to think for themselves.  Well, my friends, that is what we are out for in Cumberland.  The days of “talk and chalk” are both in elementary and secondary school numbered.  In future the successful master and mistress will be the man and woman who although they may suggest lines of thought will get the scholar to put his own mind to work, and instead of cramming the boy’s or girl’s thinking box with useless lumber at second hand will get them to pack their own thinking boxes for themselves and produce therefrom original thought which will build up individual character.  For it is character after all that will alone help the nation, and we cannot hope to get this help unless we can get the creature whose character is being formed to be a thoughtful creature.  Unless we get boys and girls to think for themselves we shall not be able to be quick witted or close and accurate observers.  You heard how last week the Speaker urged the need of getting scholars to be accurate, to be precise.  He twitted girls with being in matter of accuracy or statement and preciseness of observation somewhat deficient.  That same day I was sitting at tea with him after his address, and the schoolgirl who kindly volunteered to give us a second cup of tea brought his cup to me and gave mine to him—an example of the very lack of preciseness and accurate observation of which he had been complaining.

I do not wish to digress, but I should like in this connection to say that the learning of Latin or any so-called dead language is a marvellous gymnastic in accuracy in thought and expression.  Perhaps the fact that so many generations of girls have never had the chance of learning Latin may account for the lack of precision and accuracy we are speaking of….  I commend this forcible plea for the retention of Latin in all our secondary schools.  If the end of education is to turn out clear, precise, and logical thinkers we must endeavour to see to it that we do not drop one of the best gymnastics that we have for early discipline in clear thought and clear speech, but we want our boys and girls not only to think to speak accurately but to observe accurately, and it is here where nature study comes to our help.  I am glad to know from your school magazine that your school societies are flourishing.  I hope you will add to these a Natural History Society or Field Society and Antiquarian Society.  In such a countryside as this you are without excuse if you do not all become lovers not only of natural scenery but of the birds and beasts of merrie Inglewood whose friendship won in schoolday life continues, as I can testify, for the rest of our days.  But we are out for character.  One of the elements which make for character is the historic sense and this is almost impossible unless the imagination is cultivated.  In this countryside with the evidence of the Romans at Brougham, of the Britons Maybrough and Long Meg, with your echoes of Arthurian legend and Viking wager of battle at your Arthur’s Table Round, with reminiscences of the days of tourney at the same place, with your heritage of the days of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Penrith Castle, great Countess Anne at Brougham, with your historic churchyard and its pre-Norman burial monuments, and your legend of a northern Robin Hood and his merrie men, with your Beacon Hill that no doubt flared for the Armada and roused the country when Prince Charlie came here—you boys and girls at Penrith are without excuse if you are deficient in a historical sense.  And as for imagination and the poetic side of things which feeds the imaginative sense it can never be forgotten that Penrith gave us the mother of our great Cumberland poet, William Wordsworth, and that he as a boy here in the Eden Vale learned something of the wisdom and spirit of the universe….  I urge strongly that more time should be given than has been given in the past to directing their minds to those “wells of English undefiled” which are found in our standard poetry.  We are out for character, but character without Godliness which only believes in this world and material forces has produced the German war and is producing German hate.  If this fateful year has done nothing else it has shown us the difference between the religious England and the religious Germany.  Our ideals are different because the supreme foundations for these ideals are different.  The office of imagination is to be the handmaid both of the religious sense and of our ideals.  Henceforth I think that in all British schools we shall be more determined than ever to see that behind all the work of master and of scholar there stands our duty to God and our duty to our neighbour, love of God and the love of man.

And now for one last word for the parents.  There can be no education worth the name until the parent recognises that the most unkind thing that he can do to the growing intelligence of the child is to take it away from school just at the most receptive time of its life, just at the time when the scholar is beginning to realise the delight of learning and to feel the joy of the unfolding powers of the mind, but this unkindness the parents are guilty of if they remove their boys and girls from the secondary school at the age of 15.  To send a boy or girl to a secondary school for a couple of years is sheer waste of time.  It is sheer waste of the county money also.  The county has spent a very large amount of money in the last few years in the establishment of secondary schools throughout its area, but the returns that have been made show two things—first of all that the children from our elementary schools are not being encouraged in any fair proportion to enter for the county minor scholarship, and secondly that the parents are not doing what they can to ensure that the children stay long enough at the secondary schools to obtain either adequate education for the scholar or adequate return to the county for the money that the ratepayers and the trustees of endowments are expending….  I urge to the best of my ability and with all my heart that Penrith parents shall look upon education in future as the best investment they can make for their children, and that no sacrifice on their part can be too great in justice to the scholar, in justice to the school and county, and in justice to the masters, to enable their children to have the full benefit of the secondary school curriculum for the requisite number of years.

(Carlisle Journal, 11 December 1914, p. 7.)

Hits: 5282