England -- Description and travel; Icknield Way (England); Thomas, Edward, 1878-1917
“I do not shed tears: I did that when she was born, for I saw her lie
dead in the cot where she smiled.”
There was a long interval and then one short entry:--
“I possess everything, but in the world’s sense nothing but my
name--A. A. B.; if I could lose that I should be a better citizen, not
of the world, but of the universe of eternity. Are the stars called
Procion and Lyra except by astronomers? Then why should I have a
name?--unless, indeed, there were a name which described me as a poem
describes an emotion. I will be nameless. I will no longer condemn
myself to this title of A. A. B.”
The next and final entries all belonged to the winter which he spent in
the barn.
On Christmas Eve:--
“Life will never be better or nobler, nor has ever been, than here at
this instant in my breast. But--may I never be content to know it lest
to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow be the less for it.”
Then:--
“What is man? One moment he is a prayer, another a flower of God,
another a flame to consume he knows not what save that it is himself.
And, again, he is but a dungeon in which an infant’s cry is echoing.
One day I saw soldiers, and I was nothing but, as it were, a sea-shell
to record the clattering hoofs, the scarlet, the shattering trumpet.
“The children have a doll that was given to them. They are talking to
it and about it--as I talk to and about another man.
“I heard the wind rustle in the dead leaves this morning, I heard it
rustle over my grave, and over the world’s, and over the embers of all
the stars, and I was not afraid.
“What name has my beautiful barn in heaven? In it was born a man in
the sight of his brothers and sisters. God has told me my seed shall
be multiplied as the sands of the sea. Can it be that out of this barn
will grow the regeneration of the world, or will the forgotten memory
of it trouble the well-being of some citizen far hence in time and so
give birth to a flame, a prayer, a rose out of the soul of him? It is
cold, yes, but the frost is one of the angels.
“A doctor has been here, a man not used to our life. He too felt that
it was cold. He said that little Francis--whom Mary calls Albert
Edward--is ill and may die. If he does, then it may be from the corpse
of an infant the saviour of society will be born.”
These were the last words. On the day after the doctor’s visit the
arrest was made. Arthur Aubrey Bishopstone and two of the children died
in the infirmary of the prison. Francis Albert Edward, born at Lone
Barn on Christmas Day, recovered from the effects of his birth and left
the workhouse at the end of June with his mother and four brothers. I
believe that after Lone Barn there was nothing they missed less than
Arthur Aubrey Bishopstone. If they had been given to considering such
matters, they would have said that he ought to have lived solitary and
let his hair grow in Wayland’s Smithy instead of marrying and begetting
seven children, of whom only two were able to die in infancy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account