Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic

Gypsy Heather!

V

Remember Gypsy Heather?
Now Rhona sits beneath the tree
That shades our tent, alone and weeping;
And him, the ‘Scollard,’ him I see:
From bush to bush I see him creeping —
I see her mock him, see her run
And free his pony from the tether,
Who lays his ears in love and fun,
And gallops with her in the sun
Through lace the gossamers have spun, —
Gypsy Heather!

VI

Remember Gypsy Heather?
She reaches ‘Rington Birches’; now,
Dismounting from the ‘Scollard’s’ pony,
She sits alone with heavy brow,
Thinking, but not of hare or coney.
The hot sea holds each sight, each sound
Of England’s golden autumn weather:
The Romanies now are sitting round
The tea-cloth spread on grassy ground;
Now Rhona dances heather-crowned, —
Gypsy Heather!

VII

Remember Gypsy Heather?
She’s thinking of this withered spray
Through all the dance; her eyes are gleaming
Darker than night, yet bright as day,
While round her a gypsy shawl is streaming;
I see the lips – the upper curled,
A saucy rose-leaf, from the nether,
Whence – while the floating shawl is twirled,
As if a ruddy cloud were swirled —
Her scornful laugh at him is hurled, —
Gypsy Heather!

VIII

Remember Gypsy Heather?
In storm or calm, in sun or rain,
There’s magic, Rhona, in the writing
Wound round these flowers whose purple stain
Dims the dear scrawl of Love’s inditing:
Dear girl, this spray between the leaves
(Now fading like a draggled feather
With which the nesting song-bird weaves)
Makes every wave the vessel cleaves
Seem purple of heather as it heaves, —
Gypsy Heather!

IX

Remember Gypsy Heather?
Oh, Rhona! sights and sounds of home
Are everywhere; the skylark winging
Through amber cloud-films till the dome
Seems filled with love, our love, a-singing.
The sea-wind seems an English breeze
Bearing the bleat of ewe and wether
Over the heath from Rington Leas,
Where, to the hymn of birds and bees,
You taught me Romany ’neath the trees, —
Gypsy Heather!

Another reason that makes it necessary for me to touch upon the inland part of East Anglia is that I have certain remarks to make upon what are called ‘the Omarian poems of Mr. Watts-Dunton.’ Although, as I have before hinted, St. Ives, being in Hunts, belongs topographically to the East Midlands, its sympathies are East Anglian. This perhaps is partly because it is the extreme east of Hunts, and partly because the mouth of the Ouse is at Lynn: to those whom Mr. Norris affectionately calls St. Ivians and Hemingfordians, the seaside means Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Cromer, Hunstanton, and the towns on the Suffolk coast. The splendour of Norfolk ale may also partly account for it. This perhaps also explains why the famous East Anglian translator of Omar Khayyàm would seem to have been known to a few Omarians on the banks of the Ouse and Cam as soon as the great discoverer of good things, Rossetti, pounced upon it in the penny box of a second-hand bookseller. Readers of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s obituary notice of F. H. Groome in the ‘Athenæum’ will recall these words: —

“It was not merely upon Romany subjects that Groome found points of sympathy at ‘The Pines’ during that first luncheon; there was that other subject before mentioned, Edward FitzGerald and Omar Khayyàm. We, a handful of Omarians of those antediluvian days, were perhaps all the more intense in our cult because we believed it to be esoteric. And here was a guest who had been brought into actual personal contact with the wonderful old ‘Fitz.’ As a child of eight he had seen him, talked with him, been patted on the head by him. Groome’s father, the Archdeacon of Suffolk, was one of FitzGerald’s most intimate friends. This was at once a delightful and a powerful link between Frank Groome and those at the luncheon table; and when he heard, as he soon did, the toast to ‘Omar Khayyàm,’ none drank that toast with more gusto than he. The fact is, as the Romanies say, true friendship, like true love, is apt to begin at first sight.”

This is the poem alluded to: it is entitled, ‘Toast to Omar Khayyàm: An East Anglian echo-chorus inscribed to old Omarian Friends in memory of happy days by Ouse and Cam’: —

Chorus

In this red wine, where memory’s eyes seem glowing,
And days when wines were bright by Ouse and Cam,
And Norfolk’s foaming nectar glittered, showing
What beard of gold John Barleycorn was growing,
We drink to thee, right heir of Nature’s knowing,
Omar Khayyàm!

I

Star-gazer, who canst read, when Night is strowing
Her scriptured orbs on Time’s wide oriflamme,
Nature’s proud blazon: ‘Who shall bless or damn?
Life, Death, and Doom are all of my bestowing!’
Chorus: Omar Khayyàm!

II

Poet, whose stream of balm and music, flowing
Through Persian gardens, widened till it swam —
A fragrant tide no bank of Time shall dam —