I cannot rest, Buller--I can have no peace of mind but in a successful defence of these Ditches. Why is a Ditch to be despised? Because it is dug? So is a grave. Is the Ditch--wet or dry--that must be passed by the Volunteers of the Fighting Division before the Fort can be stormed, too low a word for a Poet to use? Alas! on such an occasion well might he say, as he looked after the assault and saw the floating tartans--_implentur fossæ_--the Ditch is filled!
Ay, Mr North, in that case the word Ditch--and the thing--would be dignified by danger, daring, and death. But here----
The case is the same--with a difference, for there is all the Danger--all the Daring--all the Death--that the incident or event admits of--and they are not small. Think for a moment. The Rain falls over the whole broad heart of the tilled earth--from the face of the fields it runs into the Ditches--the first unavoidable receptacles--these pour into the rivers--the rivers into the river mouths--and then you are in the Sea.
I am amazed--I am indignant, Buller. _Ruit arduus æther._ The steep or high ether rushes down! as we saw it rush down a few minutes ago. What happens?
"Et pluvià ingenti sata læta, boumque labores Diluit!"
Alas! for the hopeful--hopeless husbandman now. What a multiplied and magnified expression have we here for the arable lands. All the glad seed-time vain--vain all industry of man and oxen--there you have the true agricultural pathos--washed away--set in a swim--deluged! Well has the Poet--in one great line--spoke the greatness of a great matter. Sudden affliction--visible desolation--imagined dearth.
Don't stop, sir, you speak to the President of our Agricultural Society--go on, sir, go on.
Now drop in--in its veriest place, and in two words, the _necessitated Implentur fossæ_. No pretence--no display--no phraseology--the nakedest, but quite effectual statement of the fact--which the farmer--I love that word farmer--has witnessed as often as he has ever seen the Coming--the Ditches that were dry ran full to the brim. The homely rustic fact, strong and impressive to the husbandman, cannot be dealt with by poetry otherwise than by setting it down in its bald simplicity. Seek to raise--to dress--to disguise--and you make it ridiculous. The Mantuan knew better--he says what must be said--and goes on--