The Story of My Heart, 1883

CHAPTER I: THE STORY OF MY HEART [published Oct. 1883] commences seventeen years ago. In the glow of youth there were times every now and then when I felt the necessity of a strong inspiration of soul thought. My heart was dusty, parched for want of the rain of deep feeling; my mind arid and dry, for there is a dust which settles on the heart as well as that which falls on a ledge. ... When this began to form I felt eager to escape from it, to throw off the heavy clothing, to drink deeply once more at the fresh fountains of life. An inspiration―a long deep breath of the pure air of thought―could alone give health to the heart. There is a hill [Liddington] to which I used to resort at such periods. The labour of walking three miles to it, all the while gradually ascending, seemed to clear my blood of the heaviness accumulated at home. On a warm summer day the slow continued rise required continual effort, which carried away the sense of oppression.... I began to breathe a new air and to have a fresher aspiration. ... Moving up the sweet short turf, at every step my heart seemed to obtain a wider horizon of feeling; with every inhalation of rich pure air, a deeper desire. The very light of the sun was whiter and more brilliant here. By the time I had reached the summit I had entirely forgotten the petty circumstances and the annoyances of existence. I felt myself, myself.

01 August 2026

The Earth Prayer

'The Earth Prayer' was the title that Samuel J Looker gave to this poem in Jefferies' hand. Looker published it in the Chronicles of the Hedges in 1948 along with the comment that it 'is obviously part of the feeling that inspired the writing of The Story of My Heart' (i.e. the opening passage). 

N.B. Jefferies writes beautiful poetic prose. Forgive his clumsy attempts at poetry. 

                             Imaginative water colour of Liddington Hill by Jane Muir FCSD

 

The sunshine in the cloudless sky,

When up the hill I pressed on high,

Upon the earth I laid my breast,

The thyme beneath my form was prest,

My face within the grass was laid,

My hair was mixed with the green blade;

I smelt the odour of the grass,

And the sweet smell the sweet earth has;

The little insects trembling fled,

And turned aside from couched head,

The wind now uttered siss, siss, siss,

Sharp as the sound of a bee I wis,

The wind that blew so free and blithe,

Like the clean swinging of a scythe,

The wind that lifted every stalk,

As if the grass would rise and walk;

Nor could these grasses be so small

But that I knew them one and all;

That earth might keep my lust so bold,

I with my finger touched the mould,

The atoms clung to the moisty skin,

And as a prism my nail glowed then,

But as earth's beauty I adored,

I heard my heart against the sward,

Within my soul from a distant sea,

A deeper pulse that answered me.