Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley was an English writer, historian, and clergyman born on June 12, 1819, in Holne, Devon. He was associated with the Christian Socialist movement and was a friend of prominent figures such as Charles Darwin. Kingsley is best known for his historical novels, including 'Westward Ho!' and 'Hypatia,' as well as his children's book 'The Water-Babies.' His works often explore social issues and aim to contribute to societal reform. Kingsley died on January 23, 1875, in Eversley, Hampshire.

June 12, 1819

January 23, 1875

English

Charles Kingsley

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Easter Week

(Written for music to be sung at a parish industrial exhibition)

See the land, her Easter keeping,
    Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
    Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices;
    Fields and gardens hail the spring;
Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,
    While the wild birds build and sing.

You, to whom your Maker granted
    Powers to those sweet birds unknown,
Use the craft by God implanted;
    Use the reason not your own.
Here, while heaven and earth rejoices,
    Each his Easter tribute bring -
Work of fingers, chant of voices,
    Like the birds who build and sing.

Eversley, 1867.

Charles Kingsley

Elegiacs

Wearily stretches the sand to the surge, and the surge to the cloudland;
Wearily onward I ride, watching the water alone.
Not as of old, like Homeric Achilles, ??de? ya???,
Joyous knight-errant of God, thirsting for labour and strife;
No more on magical steed borne free through the regions of ether,
But, like the hack which I ride, selling my sinew for gold.
Fruit-bearing autumn is gone; let the sad quiet winter hang o'er me -
What were the spring to a soul laden with sorrow and shame?
Blossoms would fret me with beauty; my heart has no time to bepraise them;
Gray rock, bough, surge, cloud, waken no yearning within.
Sing not, thou sky-lark above! even angels pass hushed by the weeper.
Scream on, ye sea-fowl! my heart echoes your desolate cry.
Sweep the dry sand on, thou wild wind...

Charles Kingsley

Fishing Song: To J. A. Froude And Tom Hughes

    Oh, Mr. Froude, how wise and good,
    To point us out this way to glory -
    They're no great shakes, those Snowdon Lakes,
    And all their pounders myth and story.
Blow Snowdon!    What's Lake Gwynant to Killarney,
Or spluttering Welsh to tender blarney, blarney, blarney?

    So Thomas Hughes, sir, if you choose,
    I'll tell you where we think of going,
    To swate and far o'er cliff and scar,
    Hear horns of Elfland faintly blowing;
Blow Snowdon!    There's a hundred lakes to try in,
And fresh caught salmon daily, frying, frying, frying.

    Geology and botany
    A hundred wonders shall diskiver,
    We'll flog and troll in strid and hole,
    And skim the cream of lake and river,
Blow Snowdon! give me Ireland for my pennies,
Hu...

Charles Kingsley

Frank Leigh's Song. A.D. 1586

Ah tyrant Love, Megaera's serpents bearing,
    Why thus requite my sighs with venom'd smart?
Ah ruthless dove, the vulture's talons wearing,
    Why flesh them, traitress, in this faithful heart?
Is this my meed?    Must dragons' teeth alone
In Venus' lawns by lovers' hands be sown?

Nay, gentlest Cupid; 'twas my pride undid me;
    Nay, guiltless dove; by mine own wound I fell.
To worship, not to wed, Celestials bid me:
    I dreamt to mate in heaven, and wake in hell;
For ever doom'd, Ixion-like, to reel
On mine own passions' ever-burning wheel.

Devonshire, 1854.
    From Westward Ho!

Charles Kingsley

Hymn [1]

Accept this building, gracious Lord,
    No temple though it be;
We raised it for our suffering kin,
    And so, Good Lord, for Thee.

Accept our little gift, and give
    To all who here may dwell,
The will and power to do their work,
    Or bear their sorrows well.

From Thee all skill and science flow;
    All pity, care, and love,
All calm and courage, faith and hope,
    Oh! pour them from above.

And part them, Lord, to each and all,
    As each and all shall need,
To rise like incense, each to Thee,
    In noble thought and deed.

And hasten, Lord, that perfect day,
    When pain and death shall cease;
And Thy just rule shall fill the earth
    With health, and light, and peace.

When ever blue the sky shall ...

Charles Kingsley

Hypotheses Hypochondriacae [1]

And should she die, her grave should be
Upon the bare top of a sunny hill,
Among the moorlands of her own fair land,
Amid a ring of old and moss-grown stones
In gorse and heather all embosomed.
There should be no tall stone, no marble tomb
Above her gentle corse;--the ponderous pile
Would press too rudely on those fairy limbs.
The turf should lightly he, that marked her home.
A sacred spot it would be--every bird
That came to watch her lone grave should be holy.
The deer should browse around her undisturbed;
The whin bird by, her lonely nest should build
All fearless; for in life she loved to see
Happiness in all things--
And we would come on summer days
When all around was bright, and set us down
And think of all that lay beneath that turf
On which ...

Charles Kingsley

In An Illuminated Missal[1]

I would have loved:    there are no mates in heaven;
I would be great:    there is no pride in heaven;
I would have sung, as doth the nightingale
The summer's night beneath the moone pale,
But Saintes hymnes alone in heaven prevail.
My love, my song, my skill, my high intent,
Have I within this seely book y-pent:
And all that beauty which from every part
I treasured still alway within mine heart,
Whether of form or face angelical,
Or herb or flower, or lofty cathedral,
Upon these sheets below doth lie y-spred,
In quaint devices deftly blazoned.
    Lord, in this tome to thee I sanctify
    The sinful fruits of worldly fantasy.

1839.

Charles Kingsley

Juventus Mundi

List a tale a fairy sent us
Fresh from dear Mundi Juventus.
When Love and all the world was young,
And birds conversed as well as sung;
And men still faced this fair creation
With humour, heart, imagination.
Who come hither from Morocco
Every spring on the sirocco?
In russet she, and he in yellow,
Singing ever clear and mellow,
'Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet you, sweet you,
Did he beat you?    Did he beat you?'
Phyllopneustes wise folk call them,
But don't know what did befall them,
Why they ever thought of coming
All that way to hear gnats humming,
Why they built not nests but houses,
Like the bumble-bees and mousies.
Nor how little birds got wings,
Nor what 'tis the small cock sings -
How should they know - stupid fogies?
They da...

Charles Kingsley

Margaret To Dolcino

Ask if I love thee?    Oh, smiles cannot tell
Plainer what tears are now showing too well.
Had I not loved thee, my sky had been clear:
Had I not loved thee, I had not been here,
    Weeping by thee.

Ask if I love thee?    How else could I borrow
Pride from man's slander, and strength from my sorrow?
Laugh when they sneer at the fanatic's bride,
Knowing no bliss, save to toil and abide
    Weeping by thee.

Andernach on the Rhine,
August 1851.

Charles Kingsley

Martin Lightfoot's Song [1]

Come hearken, hearken, gentles all,
    Come hearken unto me,
And I'll sing you a song of a Wood-Lyon
    Came swimming out over the sea.

He ranged west, he ranged east,
    And far and wide ranged he;
He took his bite out of every beast
    Lives under the greenwood tree.

Then by there came a silly old wolf,
    'And I'll serve you,' quoth he;
Quoth the Lyon, 'My paw is heavy enough,
    So what wilt thou do for me?'

Then by there came a cunning old fox,
    'And I'll serve you,' quoth he;
Quoth the Lyon, 'My wits are sharp enough
    So what wilt thou do for me?'

Then by there came a white, white dove,
    Flew off Our Lady's knee;
Sang 'It's I will be your true, true love,
    If you'll be true to me.'

'And ...

Charles Kingsley

My Hunting Song

    Forward!    Hark forward's the cry!
One more fence and we're out on the open,
So to us at once, if you want to live near us!
Hark to them, ride to them, beauties! as on they go,
Leaping and sweeping away in the vale below!
Cowards and bunglers, whose heart or whose eye is slow,
    Find themselves staring alone.

    So the great cause flashes by;
Nearer and clearer its purposes open,
While louder and prouder the world-echoes cheer us:
Gentlemen sportsmen, you ought to live up to us,
Lead us, and lift us, and hallo our game to us -
We cannot call the hounds off, and no shame to us -
    Don't be left staring alone!

Eversley, 1849.

Charles Kingsley

My Little Doll

I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
    The prettiest doll in the world;
Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,
    And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
    As I played in the heath one day;
And I cried for more than a week, dears,
    But I never could find where she lay.

I found my poor little doll, dears,
    As I played in the heath one day:
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
    For her paint is all washed away,
And her arms trodden off by the cows, dears
    And her hair not the least bit curled:
Yet for old sakes' sake she is still, dears,
    The prettiest doll in the world.

From The Water-Babies.
Eversley, 1862.

Charles Kingsley

Ode On The Installation Of The Duke Of Devonshire, Chancellor Of The University Of Cambridge, 1862[1]

Hence a while, severer Muses;
Spare your slaves till drear October.
Hence; for Alma Mater chooses
Not to be for ever sober:
But, like stately matron gray,
Calling child and grandchild round her,
Will for them at least be gay;
Share for once their holiday;
And, knowing she will sleep the sounder,
Cheerier-hearted on the morrow
Rise to grapple care and sorrow,
Grandly leads the dance adown, and joins the children's play.
    So go, for in your places
    Already, as you see,
(Her tears for some deep sorrow scarcely dried),
Venus holds court among her sinless graces,
With many a nymph from many a park and lea.
She, pensive, waits the merrier faces
Of those your wittier sisters three,
O'er jest and dance and song who still preside,
To cheer her...

Charles Kingsley

Ode To The North-East Wind

Welcome, wild North-easter.
    Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
    Ne'er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black North-easter!
    O'er the German foam;
O'er the Danish moorlands,
    From thy frozen home.
Tired we are of summer,
    Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
    Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
    Through the lazy day:
Jovial wind of winter
    Turns us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
    Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
    Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild-fowl;
    Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
    Lonely curlew pipe.
Through the black fir-forest
    Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snow-flakes
   ...

Charles Kingsley

Old And New: A Parable

See how the autumn leaves float by decaying,
Down the wild swirls of the rain-swollen stream.
So fleet the works of men, back to their earth again;
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream.

Nay! see the spring-blossoms steal forth a-maying,
Clothing with tender hues orchard and glen;
So, though old forms pass by, ne'er shall their spirit die,
Look!    England's bare boughs show green leaf again.

Eversley, 1848.

Charles Kingsley

On The Death Of A Certain Journal[1]

So die, thou child of stormy dawn,
Thou winter flower, forlorn of nurse;
Chilled early by the bigot's curse,
The pedant's frown, the worldling's yawn.

Fair death, to fall in teeming June,
When every seed which drops to earth
Takes root, and wins a second birth
From steaming shower and gleaming moon.

Fall warm, fall fast, thou mellow rain;
Thou rain of God, make fat the land;
That roots which parch in burning sand
May bud to flower and fruit again.

To grace, perchance, a fairer morn
In mightier lands beyond the sea,
While honour falls to such as we
From hearts of heroes yet unborn,

Who in the light of fuller day,
Of purer science, holier laws,
Bless us, faint heralds of their cause,
Dim beacons of their glorious way.
...

Charles Kingsley

On The Death Of Leopold, King Of The Belgians[1]

A King is dead!    Another master mind
    Is summoned from the world-wide council hall.
Ah, for some seer, to say what links behind -
    To read the mystic writing on the wall!

Be still, fond man:    nor ask thy fate to know.
    Face bravely what each God-sent moment brings.
Above thee rules in love, through weal and woe,
    Guiding thy kings and thee, the King of kings.

Windsor Castle,
    November 10, 1865.

Charles Kingsley

Palinodia

Ye mountains, on whose torrent-furrowed slopes,
And bare and silent brows uplift to heaven,
I envied oft the soul which fills your wastes
Of pure and stern sublime, and still expanse
Unbroken by the petty incidents
Of noisy life:    Oh hear me once again!

Winds, upon whose racked eddies, far aloft,
Above the murmur of the uneasy world,
My thoughts in exultation held their way:
Whose tremulous whispers through the rustling glade
Were once to me unearthly tones of love,
Joy without object, wordless music, stealing
Through all my soul, until my pulse beat fast
With aimless hope, and unexpressed desire--
Thou sea, who wast to me a prophet deep
Through all thy restless waves, and wasting shores,
Of silent labour, and eternal change;
First teacher of the ...

Charles Kingsley

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