Who have put off their mortal spoils-ah no!
She lives another's wishes to complete,--

Joy be their lot, and happiness,' he cried,'His lot and hers, as misery is mine!'

"Such was that strong concussion; but the man Who trembled, trunk and limbs, like some huge oak By a fierce tempest shaken, soon resumed The steadfast quiet natural to a mind

Of composition gentle and sedate,

And, in its movements, circumspect and slow.
Of rustic parents bred, he had been trained
(So prompted their aspiring wish) to skill
In numbers, and the sedentary art

Of penmanship,-with pride professed, and taught
By his endeavours in the mountain dales.
Now, those sad tidings weighing on his heart,
To books, and papers, and the studious desk,
He stoutly re-addressed himself-resolved
To quell his pain, and enter on the path
Of old pursuits with keener appetite
And closer industry. Of what ensued
Within his soul no outward sign appeared,

Till a betraying sickliness was seen

To tinge his cheek; and through his frame it crepu
With slow mutation unconcealable;

Such universal change as autumn makes
In the fair body of a leafy grove

Discoloured, then divested. 'Tis affirmed
By poets skilled in Nature's secret ways
That Love would not submit to be controlled
By mastery: and the good man lacked not friends
Who strove t' instil this truth into his mind,
A mind in all heart-mysteries unversed.

'Go to the hills,' said one, remit a while

This baneful diligence: at early morn

Court the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods;

And, leaving it to others to foretell,

By calculations sage, the ebb and flow

Of tides, and when the moon will be eclipsed,

Do you, for your own benefit, construct

A calendar of flowers, plucked as they blow

Where health abides, and cheerfulness and peace.'
Th' attempt was made; 'tis needless to report
How hopelessly; but innocence is strong,
And an entire simplicity of mind

A thing most sacred in the eye of Heaven,
That opens, for such sufferers, relief

Within their souls, a fount of grace divine;

And doth commend their weakness and disease
To Nature's care, assisted in her office
By all the elements that round her wait
To generate, to preserve, and to restore;
And by her beautiful array of forms
Shedding sweet influence from above, or pure

Delight exhaling from the ground they tread."
Impute it not t' impatience, if," exclaimed
The Wanderer, "I infer that he was healed
By perseverance in the course prescribed."

"You do not err: the powers, which had been lost
By slow degrees, were gradually regained;
The fluttering nerves composed; the beating heart
In rest established; and the jarring thoughts
To harmony restored. But yon dark mould
Will cover him; in height of strength-to earth
Hastily smitten, by a fever's force;

Yet not with stroke so sudden as refused
Time to look back with tenderness on her
Whom he had loved in passion, and to send
Some farewell words; and, with those words, a prayer
That, from his dying hand, she would accept
Of his possessions, that which most he prized,
A book, upon the surface of whose leaves
Some chosen plants, disposed with nicest care,
In undecaying beauty were preserved.
Mute register, to him, of time and place,
And various fluctuations in the breast;
To her, a monument of faithful love
Conquered, and in tranquillity retained.

"Close to his destined habitation, lies One whose endeavours did at length achieve A victory less worthy of regard,

Though marvellous in its kind. A place exists
High in these mountains, that allured a band
Of keen adventurers to unite their pains,
In search of treasure there by nature formed,
And there concealed: but they who tried were foiled,
And all desisted, all, save him alone;

Who taking counsel of his own clear thoughts,
And trusting only to his own weak hands,
Urged unremittingly the stubborn work,
Unseconded, uncountenanced; then, as time
Passed on, while still his lonely efforts found
No recompense, derided; and at length,
By many pitied, as insane of mind;
By others dreaded as the luckless thrall
Of subterranean spirits, feeding hope
By various mockery of sight and sound;
Hope, after hope, encouraged and destroyed.
-But when the lord of seasons had matured
The fruits of earth through space of twice ten years,
The mountain's entrails offered to the view
Of the old man, and to his trembling grasp,
His bright, his long-deferred, his dear reward.
Not with more transport did Columbus greet
A world, his rich discovery! But our swain,
A very hero till his point was gained,
Proved all unable to support the weight

Of prosperous fortune. On the fields he looked
With an unsettled liberty of thought,

Of schemes and wishes; in the daylight walked
Giddy and restless: ever and anon

Quaffed in his gratitude immoderate cups;
And truly might be said to die of joy!
He vanished; but conspicuous to this day
The path remains that linked his cottage-door
To the mine's mouth; a long and slanting track,
Upon the rugged mountain's stony side,
Worn by his daily visits to and from
The darksome centre of a constant hope.
This vestige, neither force of beating rain,
Nor the vicissitudes of frost and thaw,
Shall cause to fade, till ages pass away;
And it is named, in memory of the event,
The Path of Perseverance.'

"Thou, from whom

Man has his strength," exclaimed the Wanderer, "oh! Do thou direct it! To the virtuous grant

The penetrative eye which can perceive

In this blind world the guiding vein of hope,

That, like this labourer, such may dig their way,

Unshaken, unseduced, unterrined ;'

Grant to the wise his firmness of resolve!"

"That prayer were not superfluous," said the Priest, "Amid the noblest relics, proudest dust,

That Westminster, for Britain's glory, holds

Within the bosom of her awful pile,

Ambitiously collected. Yet the sigh,

Which wafts that prayer to heaven, is due to all,
Wherever laid, who living fell below

Their virtue's humbler mark; a sigh of pain
If to the opposite extreme they sank.
How would you pity her who yonder rests;
Him, further off; the pair, who here are laid;
But, above all, that mixture of earth's mould
Whom sight of this green hillock to my mind
Recalls! He lived not till his locks were nipped
By seasonable frost of age; nor died
Before his temples, prematurely forced
To mix the manly brown with silver grey,
Gave obvious instance of the sad effect

Produced, when thoughtless folly hath usurped
The natural crown which sage experience wears.
Gay, volatile, ingenious, quick to learn,
And prompt to exhibit all that he possessed
Or could perform; a zealous actor, hired
Into the troop of mirth, a soldier-sworn
Into the lists of giddy enterprise-
Such was he; yet, as if within his frame
Two several souls alternately had lodged,
Two sets of manners could the youth put on ;

And, fraught with antics as the Indian bird
That writhes and chatters in her wiry cage,
Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still
As the mute swan that floats adown the stream,
Or, on the waters of the unruffled lake,
Anchors her placid beauty. Not a leaf,
That flutters on the bough, more light than he;
And not a flower, that droops in the green shade,
More winningly reserved! If ye inquire
How such consummate elegance was bred
Amid these wilds; a composition framed
Of qualities so adverse-to diffuse,
Where'er he moved, diversified delight;
A simple answer may suffice, even this,-
'Twas Nature's will; who sometimes undertakes,
For the reproof of human vanity,

Art to outstrip in her peculiar walk.
Hence, for this favourite-lavishly endowed
With personal gifts, and bright instinctive wit,
While both, embellishing each other, stood
Yet further recommended by the charm
Of fine demeanour, and by dance and song,
And skill in letters, every fancy shaped
Fair expectations; nor, when to the world's
Capacious field forth went the adventurer, there
Were he and his attainments overlooked,
Or scantily rewarded; but all hopes,
Cherished for him, he suffered to depart,
Like blighted buds; or clouds that mimicked land
Before the sailor's eye; or diamond drops
That sparkling decked the morning grass; or aught
That was attractive-and hath ceased to be!
-Yet when this prodigal returned, the rites
Of joyful greeting were on him bestowed,
Who, by humiliation undeterred,

Sought for his weariness a place of rest

Within his father's gates. Whence came he?— clothed

In tattered garb, from hovels where abides
Necessity, the stationary host

Of vagrant poverty; from rifted barns,

Where no one dwells but the wide-staring owl
And the owl's prey; none permanently house,
But many harbour; from these haunts, to which
He had descended from the proud saloon,
He came, the ghost of beauty and of health,
The wreck of gaiety! But soon revived
In strength, in power refitted, he renewed
His suit to fortune; and she smiled again
Upon a fickle ingrate. Thrice he rose,
Thrice sank as willingly. For he, whose nerves
Were used to thrill with pleasure, while his voice
Softly accompanied the tuneful harp,
By the nice finger of fair ladies touched,
In glittering halls, was able to derive

Not less enjoyment from an abject choice.
Who happier for the moment? who more blithe
Than this fallen spirit? in those dreary holds
His talents lending to exalt the freaks
Of merry-making beggars,-now, provoked
To laughter multiplied in louder peals
By his malicious wit; then, all enchained
With mute astonishment, themselves to see
In their own arts outdone, their fame eclipsed,
As by the very presence of the fiend
Who dictates and inspires illusive feats,
For knavish purposes! The city, too
(With shame I speak it), to her guilty bowers
Allured him, sunk so low in self-respect
As there to linger, there to eat his bread,
Hired minstrel of voluptuous blandishment;
Charming the air with skill of hand or voice,
Listen who would, be wrought upon who might,
Sincerely wretched hearts, or falsely gay.
Truths I record to many known, for such
The not unfrequent tenor of his boast,
In ears that relished the report; but all
Was from his parents happily concealed;
Who saw enough for blame and pitying love.
They also were permitted to receive

His last, repentant breath; and closed his eyes,
No more to open on that irksome world
Where he had long existed in the state

Of a young fowl beneath one mother hatched,
Though from another sprung of different kind,
Where he had lived, and could not cease to live,
Distracted in propensity; content

With neither element of good or ill,
And yet in both rejoicing; man unblest;

Of contradictions infinite the slave,

Till his deliverance, when mercy made him

One with himself, and one with those who sleep."

""Tis strange," observed the Solitary, "strange
It seems, and scarcely less than pitiful,
That in a land where charity provides
For all who can no longer feed themselves,

A man like this should choose to bring his shame
To the parental door; and with his sighs
Infect the air which he had freely breathed
In happy infancy. He could not pine,
Whene'er rejected, howsoe'er forlorn,

Through lack of converse; no, he must have found
Abundant exercise for thought and speech
In his dividual being, self-reviewed,
Self-catechised, self-punished. Some there are
Who, drawing near their final home, and much
And daily longing that the same were reached,
Would rather shun than seek the fellowship
Of kindred mould. Such haply here are laid!"