To John Tidmarsh   (Jul. 1st, 1843)

(Pour mon cher¹ Jack)

________________

Dear Jack, ere the pennant² above thee is streaming,

A meteor tracing its path thro the sky –

While Remembrance o’er pleasures departed is dreaming,

I raise my blunt steel-nib to wish thee Good Bye!

And shall I appeal to the empty illusion,

That floats o’er Parnassus,³ and raise with the throng,

The incense of prayer for the fancied infusion

Of light from the muse to embellish my song?

Away with the mock’ry – the language of feeling

Is fairest disrobed of the tinsel of art;

Its musical tones a deep pathos revealing

Bear on them the fair, sunny stamp of the heart!

Oh! peaceful and soft my dear Jack be thy pillow,

Encircled by thoughts of the fair native shore;

As riding secure o’er the foam crested billow,

Thou dreamest of Friendship and Tyndall once more!

How I think on the nights we have nestled together!

When the voice of ‘discussion’ waxed warm and shrill –

They are vanished and flown like a wind-borne feather,

Yet deeply does Memory cherish them still!

And oh! when he roams by the brink of the ocean

Which laves⁴ that far shore with its wavelets of blue –

When his heart is alive to each tender emotion,

I feel that my Tidmarsh will think of them too!

And with them remember the green, sunny mountains

Of Erin,⁵ which lift their proud summits on high;

Forget not her vales, nor her flowers, nor her fountains

Where the bright smile of Boyhood first gleamed in thine eye!

There are bosoms which love thee, whose full tide of sorrow

Is fanned as it flows by a thousand fond fears;

There are bright eyes and lovely which scarcely can borrow

From Hope a glad sunbeam to dry up their tears!

Yet, onward my Boy! may the balm-wafting pinion⁶

Of unalloyed happiness wave o’er thy breast;

When far, far away from the Sappers dominion

Your thoughts wander back to ‘your own darling West’!

May the God of your fathers protect you in danger

While your course o’er the dark-rolling surges you steer

Till you press the bright strand of the Ishmaelite⁷ stranger,

And the warm tones of welcome strike sweet on thine ear!

And now ere the pennant above thee is streaming,

A meteor tracing its path thro’ the sky –

While Remembrance o’er pleasures departed is dreaming

Last chime of my song, Jack – God Bless you – Good Bye!

John Tyndall

Preston Lancashire

July 1st 1843.

It’s hardly worth sending to you Jack, had I time I’d make it better – take it however as it is – it will perchance call me to your mind when a thousand surges roar between us⁸ – every wish it contains is a bubble from the deepest fountain of my heart.

J.T.

RI MS JT 1/11/3873

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