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932 ©f>0 &*&&**? [Saturday,
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THE SONG OF THE STARS, AND DANCE OF HEAV...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Sketches From Life. Iv.— The Navvie. By ...
quently , when cookery is required ; but , on the occasion we allude to , it seems the needful apparatus had been a-missing , and he had e ' set his canines to work without it . If such be his habits in regard to lodging , eating , and drinking , he is not one whit nicer in the article of clothing . His wardrobe is very limited . Often have we seen his only shirt—as we have come upon him in some secluded spot by brook , river , or canal—take on , beneath his own stiff fingers , a peculiar saffron hue at length , which to him was at once the token of cleanness and the signal to stop ; and many a time have we seen him stand dreamy by the hedge that held to the sun this same saffron-hued habiliment .
Among other things , it must be confessed that the navvie is seldom a favourite in any neighbourhood which he may happen to favour with his temporary residence . This we suspect to arise less from the mode of his entrance than from that of his departure . The fact is the navvie has no principle ; he lives to slope , and to slope means to slink off without paying one s debts . No genuine navvie believes this wrong ; it is his one
cleverness , his solitary talent , his single bright point ; and it is , perhaps , hardly to be wondered at that , in his pride of the same , the more he can practise it the greater is his glory . It is almost universally the case with him that , when he has been time enough anywhere to get comfortably in arrears with landladies and other natives , he gets quietly up through the night , makes up his bundle—not always omitting to include in it any stray knicknack that may come by accident to hand—and slopes .
We are afraid , after all , that we have not succeeded in making the navvie agreeable to the reader . This brute , possessed of not one rational idea , that consents to such a beastly existence only for the delight of drunkenness and the triumph of sloping , you will hardly smile on . You know the work he does ; you know his firmness in accidents ; his steadfastness to his master ; still he will not go down with you . And , when you meet him on his " tramp , " by some roadside , with his brown cheeks and brown throat , his broad shoulders , hands of horn , and sturdy limbs , with his cap or billycock
on his head , his loose neckerchief , his folded down collar , his blue striped slop , with the heart worked on the front of it , and his moleskin trousers turned up above his sufficient lace-up boots , you desire to get out of his way . You like neither him nor his mate . You think the things he has sloped with are in that sack on his back , and that bundle in his hand . You will not give him charity . You are still more averse to him if he wears earrings , and has a fresh young lass by his side , that seems , from the neck downwards , all Indian silk pocket handkerchiefs .
Well , reader , perhaps you are right . But then the question is : should all this be allowed ? Are there no arguments here for those "Industrial Regiments" of Thomas Carlyle ? Are there no arguments here for association ? The strange condition of society—that of high refinement , high civilization , this—God bless the mark ! and beasts for the harness—beasts of the most undeniable draught , the most unquestionable burden—ungroomed , unstabled , fed on the most villanous straw and husks , that know neither hay nor corn—allowed to roam at large , unbadged , uncoliaved , and unticketed , trampling on the gardens of the poor industrious , and eating up the
substance of the struggling widow and the unwilling pauper . In the whole railway group is not to be found one well-placed figure . Can the contractor who employs the navvies , who knows their fortunes , and who lives by them , conceive himself such ? Can the tommy-shop keeper , with the perfumes on him of rancid cheese , sour bread , and rusty bacon indescribably mingled ? Can the ganger , " hollering" six days a-week for the sum of thirty shillings , the most blasphemous imprecations ? Can the navvie himself believe himself a well-placed figure ? 'T is
monstrous that such a dissolute—such a loose , incoherent , inarticulate , miserable condition of society should be longer tolerated ! Impossible to change it ! How so ? Could not these beasts of burden have , at least , each a number and an appointed place ? Could not their several capabilities be approximately known and registered ? Could it not be made impossible that any one of them should fall aside from the highway and die , as we have seen him more than once , in a corner—starved , unhelped , unnoticed , and uncared for ? Could it not be made impossible that any one of them should fail of sound cheese , sweet bread , and fresh butter—that any one of them should fail of a shed over his head , or a clean shirt on his back—that any
one of thum should be found a dunken log upon the turnpike—that any one of them should steal oft" like a thief in the night , putting his brutal tongue with brutal triumph into his cheek , with the idiotical chuckle that he carried in his haversack the hard-won earnings of that pinched widow who had made his bed , and done sundry other acts of kindness for him this month and more ? We will not believe it . We will believe that all of them can be ordered . We will believe that contractors , gangers , and navvies are all susceptible of luwj that all of them can be so placed that the work shall be done , and better done , and yet that each of them shall be bodily , morally , and intellectually looked to and cared for , so that , in the individual and the aggregate , the best and larirest result shall issue .
The function of the navvie is a good one . He is breaking down the narrow , the limited , the sectarian , the particular , and bringing rapidly the large , the general , the catholic , the universal . Look tit him , even in this island , what work he does ! Mow he tosses Scotland into England , and spreads England into Scotland ! How he kneads those Welsh mountains , as if they were but clay in his fingers , and scatters all impediments easily , and
pours upon the astonished Celt the light and air which the terrible and hated Saxon has been , for so many centuries industriously , but unscrupulously accumulating for him ! And the doer of all this remains in the state we have described ! We hope it will not be for long , however . We hope that Association will speedily enable him to hold up his head with the best of us . At all events we hope ere long to see him no ownerless beast of burden , wandering at large to the misery of himself , and the encreased misery of the already overmiserable , but a clean and wholesome , a disciplined and drilled , an educated , healthy , and happy soldier of labour , proud of his regiment , proud of his cantonments , proud of himself .
932 ©F>0 &*&&**? [Saturday,
932 © f > 0 &*&&**? [ Saturday ,
The Song Of The Stars, And Dance Of Heav...
THE SONG OF THE STARS , AND DANCE OF HEAVEN . Sages tell us , with a look Winning-wise as elder brothers , To study heaven ' s starry book ; And we can read as well as others . And thus we learn to read the notes Of happy harmonies of heaven : The song of stars which ever floats , Their dance on heaven ' s blue floor given ; And thus would sing , and , singing , shine And step with stars in dance divine . The bright moon dances round the earth , And fills our bards with songful measures ; While round the sun , in whirling mirth , Three planets dance with shining pleasures ; Now advancing , now retiring—In apogee , in perigee ; Now their motions swiftly firing , Now slow and stately dance the three ; Then to the east , then to the west , Round they turn , and round and round , Forming figures without rest O'er the blue celestial ground ; While , amid the starry mazes , Other sets fair form their dances , Circling them with Beauty's blazes As the Ball of Night advances : Thirty-three , all hand in hand , Wreathed in one high heavenly pleasure , Joined in one bright beaming band , Siep in time find move in measure . Round the amorous star of Jove , Four most fair ones dance in passion , Trembling round him as they move , Circling sweet his jealous station ; While round dark old Saturn ' s orb , Two soft sisters—each one vying In the love that doth absorb—Are the dance of joy supplying . And around , how meet the music ! How it swelis on poet ' s ear ! As when Endymiou faintly grew sick At the Moon ' s voice , crystal clear . As they dance the stars are singing , Tone and semi-tone are blending , Shafts of sound around are winging Which their bows of voice are sending . Hark , great Jupiter ' s deep bass Mingled with old Saturn ' s tones , Fill the vaulted roofs of space , Hush with solemn sounds our groans ! While brave Mars his tenor raises , And our Earth and Venus chime Counter-tenor in the praises Of each other , true in time ; And the thrill of Mercury ' s treble Ravishingly ripples on—In the skiey streams a pebble Liquid-sounded in its tone ; And all stars take up the chorus-Some with voice and some with string-Till the spheral sounds come o ' er us , And souls dance and spirits sing . O that thus the world would move—Ever brightening in progression—In a starry dance of love Round its suns in proud procession ! O that thus mankind would time Their souls unto the starry measures , Till spirits all beneath the moon Sung in strains of sacred pleasures ! O that thus mankind would bo Conjoined in heavenly harmony ; Thus God ' s will on earth be done-Sky and land be blent in one ! Gooiavyn Baumby .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 21, 1850, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21121850/page/20/
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