10 
lady to whom they are addressed. But indeed the mystery 
itself is not one to be too explicitly revealed. The 
revelation comes to the reader of the poems when he finds 
them full of Eversley throughout. Sometimes it is a vague 
recollection or imitation, as in the hamlet in ‘‘ The Saint’s 
Tragedy ”’ (I., ii.), with its blue slopes, and orchard 
boughs, and ‘‘ those young rogues marching to school ;’’ 
or in the ‘‘ Installation Ode,’’ where Eversley is reflected in 
the villages of the Cam, 
Humming mills and golden meadows, 
Barred with elm and poplar shadows. 
Sometimes we have a clear-cut picture of Eversley pure 
and simple ; 
O blessed drums of Aldershot ! 
O blessed South-west train ! 
O blessed, blessed Speaker’s clock, 
All prophesying rain ! 
O blessed yvaffil, laughing loud! 
O blessed falling glass! 
O blessed fan of cold gray cloud! 
O blessed smelling grass ! 
O bless’d South wind that toots his horn 
Through every hole and crack! 
I’m off at eight to-morrow morn, 
To bring such fishes back. 
And there is a ‘‘ Child Ballad,’’ which I cannot refrain 
from quoting in full. It breathes the spirit of the country 
parson in his school, and might be thought—if we did not 
remember Mrs. Alexander’s ‘‘ All things bright and 
beautiful ’’—the best children’s hymn ever written: 
Jesus, He loves one and all, 
Jesus, He loves children small, 
Their souls are waiting round His feet 
On high, before His mercy-seat. 
’ While he wandered here below 
Children small to Him did go, 
At His feet they knelt and praved, 
On their heads His hands He laid. 
Came a Spirit on them then, 
Better than of mighty men, 
A Spirit faithful, pure and mild, 
A Spirit fit for king and child. 
Oh! that Spirit give to me, 
Jesu Lord, where’er I be! 
Eversley, with its moors and streams, brings us to the 
ruling passion of Kingsley’s whole life, his love of nature. 
It is sometimes said in praise of a poet that he writes of 
