P.T.W.

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THE HAWTHORN WELL.

[The following lines are associated with a singular species of popular superstition which may in some measure, explain the “pale cast of thought” that pervades them.  They are written by a native of Northumberland.  “The Hawthorn Well,” was a Rag Well, and so called from persons formerly leaving rags there for the cure of certain diseases.  Bishop Hall, in his Triumphs of Rome, ridicules a superstitious prayer of the Popish Church for the “blessing of clouts in the way of cure of diseases;” and Mr. Brand asks, “Can it have originated thence?” He further observes:—­“this absurd custom is not extinct even at this day:  I have formerly frequently observed shreds or bits of rag upon the bushes that overhang a well in the road to Benton, a village in the vicinity of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which, from that circumstance, is now or was very lately called The Rag Well.  This name is undoubtedly of long standing:  probably it has been visited for some disease or other, and these rag-offerings are the relics of the then prevailing popular superstition.”—­Brand’s Popular Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 270.]

    “From hill, from dale, each charm is fled;
    Groves, flocks, and fountains, please no more.”

  No joy, nor hope, no pleasure, nor its dream,
  Now cheers my heart.  The current of my life
  Seems settled to a dull, unruffled lake,
  Deep sunk ’midst gloomy rocks and barren hills;
  Which tempests only stir and clouds obscure;
  Unbrightened by the cheerful beam of day,
  Unbreathed on by the gentle western breeze,
  Which sweeps o’er pleasant meads and through the woods,
  Stirring the leaves which seem to dance with joy. 
  No more the beauteous landscape in its pride
  Of summer loveliness—­when every tree
  Is crowned with foliage, and each blooming flower
  Speaks by its breath its presence though unseen—­
  For me has charms; although in early days,
  Ere care and grief had dulled the sense of joy,
  No eye more raptured gazed upon the scene
  Of woody dell, green slope, or heath-clad hill;
  Nor ear with more delight drank in the strains
  Warbled by cheerful birds from every grove,
  Or thrilled by larks up-springing to the sky.

    From the hill side—­where oft in tender youth
  I strayed, when hope, the sunshine of the mind,
  Lent to each lovely scene, a double charm
  And tinged all objects with its golden hues—­
  There gushed a spring, whose waters found their way
  Into a basin of rude stone below. 
  A thorn, the largest of its kind, still green
  And flourishing, though old, the well o’erhung;
  Receiving friendly nurture at its roots
  From what its branches shaded; and around
  The love-lorn primrose and wild violet grew,
  With the faint bubbling of that limpid fount.