Sunday evening
Mon cher1 Tyndall,
Yours of the 24th2 I received just in time to apprize me of your non-appearance on the shores of Great Britain on yesterday3 ‘Heaven and Earth but this is wondrous strange’4 Tyndall has forever disclaimed ‘the lady of the raven plume’5 Ah! me! Time was and it was not thus – Oh no! but she has been replaced by another dark haired beauty. That is the reason if I opine rightly. But alas for Tyndall the scene and hour will soon be past, heavens grant him fortitude to withstand the shock of next Thursday.6 That fatal eventful – ever-to-be-remembered, never-to-be-forgotten Thursday. Tyndall I feel for you. Fancy has led me to lift the sombre curtain that shrouds futurity – A few days on in the perspective I behold the fatal day – a gloomy cloud seems to overhang its very dawn, as the day advances it becomes thicker and more dismal – night comes and it is intolerable. Out of this gloom I see a form issuing wan and dejected (miserable man! thou surely art the sufferer) slowly and mournfully he saunters along on his sad sad errand – he has reached - - - - - here I must stop, all is confusion, description fails me, even I am seized by a tremour – A pause – I hear cries the most pitious – Another – A door opens, the same sorrowful figure issues from its portals – slowly it closes after him – Closed and for ever – he turns to take a last fond look, then retraces his trembling tottering footsteps hark he sings a favourite air, but oh how that tone is altered, how pathetic is the strain, I can just catch the words as they fall from his quivering lips – They are as follows:-
No more shall Tyndall in concert sing
Nor strike the knocker as the bell he’d ring
Neath the window of 999
This was the lay of his wretched self
Tho’ not in his merrier hours
As sadly he strayed from his last farewell
Neath the ‘lamp post’s’ iron towers
Oh where are the songs of that happy place
That were sung Cupid’s javelins to bear
Of that angel now there’s not left a trace
To tell she was lovely and fair
(here he placed his hand over his heart)
The grief grows grim o’er this aching spot
Where once grew hope’s brightest flowers
Land of my Charmer thou’lt ne’er be forgot
While a vestige remains of her powers.
__________________________
If you do embark on Friday the 5th this will reach you just in time to tell you that if you want your travelling bag in L.Pool10 dont put it in the hold in Cork for as sure as you do so sure will you not get it until Monday morning. For unless they are in early on Saturday they wont have time to unload and on Sunday they dare not nor would not unload nor even uncover the hold Bracken11 told me last night that Jack12 and Dick13 have asked a day’s leave (Monday) we will also have it. I was at the docks on yesterday when the Ocean14 came in. Jack said in the last letter I got from them that he expected to meet his father in L.Pool. I am very sorry indeed for Miss T- - -s15 illness I hope for her sake as well as for yours that she be all right soon. Remember me to Mrs Cotter and to all enquiring after my nabs.16 I rather think you wont have a great task to perform!!! Dont forget No 86 Porter St.17
Ere I conclude this short essay
Please list with patience to a lay
Such as your reverence gave me ere
I left the land that nurst my fair
That fair for whom amongst the rest
You claimed a portion of my breast
Despite my oft repeated cries
On all the gods to prove them lies
(Oh! Heavens if they would claim their parts
Where would I find enough of hearts
A heart-less villain then I’d bend
At beauty’s shrine till time would end)
But fate has ruled it for the best
My heart lies buried in My breast
While yours – Oh Tyndall! – I would stop
Did I not know you’ll bear this shock
This ‘tale of woe’ may thee prepare
To bear a shock still more severe
Yes! yours is gone and in thy breast
Drear sorrow stalks a mournful guest
‘A few short hours or days’ at most
And thou wilt count the bitter cost
Of Love in vain – of beauty fled
Of bliss then talked of as the dead
‘Affections trampled’ – ‘hopes destroyed’
Thy love-fraught breast an aching void
No ‘Charmer’ now to look a smile
And sooth thy amrous breast the while
No – all are gone – love – hope – and joy
Go take thy last fond look – poor – boy!
Air ‘The light Guitar’18
Oh leave the gay and beauteous one
Her smiles and eyes so bright
And roam towards other lands unknown
Bid her a long good night
Perhaps when there thou’lt yet find one
And have another ‘Bar’
But should’st thou not – thou’rt not undone
Just think on her afar
Unknown sweet lips with tender tales
May yet cheer up thy gloom
May kindle in thy breast a flame
To quench but in the tomb
But if their tales should make thee sad
Should aught their beauty mar
Just think of love in other times
And sigh for one afar
So fare-thee-well until the time
When wafted o’er the billowy brine
To England’s shore ‘a stranger land’
I’ll grasp thy longed for welcomed hand
While you with manly accents say
At meeting on that wished for day
‘“A long farewell to love I gave”’
‘My grief I buried in the wave’
And prove to Ginty there and then
That Tyndall ‘is himself again’
RI MS JT 1/11/3582
LT Transcript Only
Mon cher: my dear (French).
Yours of the 24th: letter missing.
your non-appearance on the shores of Great Britain on yesterday: Tyndall had initially expected to begin the two-day journey from Cork to Liverpool on 29 July; see letter 0154.
‘Heaven and Earth but this is wondrous strange’: conflation of W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, I.v.166 and 168.
‘the lady of the raven plume’: Ellen from Kinsale; see letter 0151, n. 34.
next Thursday: 4 August 1842.
lay: a short lyric or narrative poem intended to be sung (OED).
a Southern clime: that of Cork in the south of Ireland.
99: 99 Great Georges Street, Cork, the address of Peri; see letter 0151, n. 33.
L.Pool: Liverpool.
Bracken: Lance Corporal John Bracken (b. 1804/5) of the 14th Company of the Royal Sappers and Miners, who had superintended the field parties of the 3rd Division, B District of the Irish Ordnance Survey (NAI OS/1/16–18), and now worked in the 5th Division of the English Survey in Liverpool.
Jack: John Tidmarsh.
Dick: Richard Hunter.
the Ocean: see letter 0143, n. 32.
Miss T- - -: Miss Tidmarsh, probably Christina.
my nabs: myself (OED).
Dont forget No 86 Porter St: presumably a reminder not to go to the wrong lodging house. Ginty had recommended Pace’s at 84 Porter Street, with ‘excellent beds and the best of accomodation’ for ‘6d per head per night’, but warned that there were ‘two houses close by together in Porter Street, dont forget the name or No., or you will go to the wrong one’; see letter 0144.
Air ‘The light Guitar’: a musical arrangement first published by Tulley & Co. in 1835.
Please cite as “Tyndall0155,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0155