Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/The Gipsy Mother
THE GIPSY MOTHER.
Gipsy, see, with fading light,
How the camp-fire blazes bright,
Where thy roving people steal
Gladly to their evening meal.
Tawny urchins, torn and bare,
And the wrinkled crone is there
Who pretends with scowling eye
Into fate's decrees to pry,
And the credulous to show
Golden fortunes, free from woe.
Why beneath the hedge-row lone,
Sit'st thou on that broken stone,
Heedless of the whoop and call
To their merry festival?
Masses rich of raven hair
Curtain o'er thy forehead rare,
Thou' lt be missed amid their glee,
Wherefore stay'st thou?
Ah! I see
On a babe thy dark eye resting,
Closely in thy bosom nesting,
And 't is sweeter far I know,
Than at proudest feast to glow,
Full contentment to dispense
Thus to helpless innocence.
Doth the presence of thy child
Make thy flashing glance so mild?
Thou, who with thy wandering race
Reared mid tricks and follies base,
Ne'er hast seen a heavenly ray
Guiding toward the better way?
Feel'st thou now some latent thrill,
Sorrowing o'er a life of ill?
Some incitement pure and good,
Dim, and faintly understood?
Stranger! 't is the prompting high
Of a mother's ministry,
Yield to that transforming love,
Let it lead thy soul above.
Dost thou muse with downcast eye
On thine infant's destiny?
Alien birth, and comrades vile,
Harsh control, or hateful wile,
Till thy prescient heart forlorn
Sickens at its lot of scorn?
One there is, to whom is known
All a mother's secret moan,
He, who heard the bitter sigh
Of that lone one's agony,
When the water-drop was spent,
And no spreading branch or tent
Sheltered from the burning sky,
Where she laid her son to die,
Bade an angel near her stand,
And a fountain's silver track
Murmuring mid the desert sand
Call from death her darling back.
Oh! to Him who still doth deign
Pity for their outcast pain,
Whom proud man with haughty eye
Scarce regards, and passes by;
Who amid the tempest-shock
Roots the wild vine on the rock,
And protects the bud to bless
The untrodden wilderness,
Lift thine eye with tear-drops dim,
Cast thy bosom's fear on Him.
He who heeds the ravens' cry
In their hopeless misery,
Deigns to feed them when they pine,
Cares he not for thee and thine?
Gipsy Mother! lone and drear,
Sad am I to leave thee here,
For the strong and sacred tie
Of thy young maternity
Links thee unto all who share
In its pleasures or its care,
All who on their yearning breast
Lull the nursling to its rest,
And though poor and low thou art,
Makes thee sister in their heart.
Gipsy Mother! strangely fair,
God be with thee in thy care.
Newcastle upon Tyne,
October 3, 1840.
Our approach to Newcastle was in the evening. Lights from an encampment of gipsies, flickered and twinkled like the torch of the glow-worm, while here and there a spot of more sustained brilliance revealed preparations for their nightly repast. A few children, with wild elf-locks, glided about, and suddenly disappeared. Occasionally, among the young females, may be seen traces of comeliness, and of the grace that Nature teaches.
The number of this singular people is not great in England, though it is difficult correctly to compute it, from their roving and scarcely tangible modes of existence. The men are sometimes seen vigorously laboring, among the hay-makers and hop-gatherers, in the counties of Surrey and Kent.
Henry the Eighth, during whose reign the gipsies first appeared in Great Britain, enacted severe laws against them as vagrants, which were enforced by Elizabeth and Anne. In Scotland, they were in early times treated with more mildness, and the gude wife, who gave them a night's hospitality, was often pleased to find that they remembered her afterwards by some slight gift, perhaps a horn spoon for her child. In the construction of this article, and of simple baskets, they are skilful, and likewise officiate as tinkers and rude musicians. Pilfering and palmistry are said to be indigenous among them; yet, like our aboriginal Americans, they have some strong traits of character, susceptibilities both of revenge and of gratitude. Though their race have been for ages regarded with contempt or indifference, there have always been individuals to extend to them pity or kindness, and within the last twenty or thirty years, a few Christian philanthropists have been desirous to enlighten their ignorance, and ameliorate their condition. Among these, Mr. Hoyland, of the Society of Friends, has been persevering in this mission of mercy. He has visited their encampments, and sought to gain influence over them for their good. A grey-haired woman of more than eighty years of age told him she had many children, and nearly fifty grandchildren, not one of whom had ever been taught to read. He embodied the result of his observations in a volume published in 1816, which contains much interesting information, and is itself a monument of that true benevolence, which in the homeless wanderers among the highways and hedges, recognises the possessors of an immortal soul.
I mentioned that our entrance into Newcastle upon Tyne was under the shadow of evening. Day revealed it to be a busy and thriving place, many parts of it exceedingly well-built, though a strong contrast is visible between the new and old portions of the town. An elegant bridge connects it with Gateshead. The churches of All Saints and St. Nicholas are imposing structures; and the spire of the last is lofty and beautiful.
Newcastle is celebrated for the excellence of its coal. Its collieries are extensively wrought, and the boats that cover the Tyne are loaded with it. We had an opportunity of observing its highly combustible nature. The morning after our arrival at the hotel, the atmosphere being rather chill, we ordered a fire in our parlor, and the servant by plunging a heated poker into a large, well-filled grate, ignited it immediately. The evening landscape was lighted by other fires than those of the gipsy encampment, and we were told they were put in action, to burn the smaller and unsaleable fragments of bituminous coal into charcoal.
Newcastle was a Roman station, and the remains of the wall built as a protection against the Scots and Picts by the Emperors of Rome, on abandoning the island, are still plainly discernible.