Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

The cold, cold moon above her head,
Thus on her knees did Goody pray;
Young Harry heard what she had said:
And icy cold he turned away.

He went complaining all the morrow
That he was cold and very chill;
His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow,
Alas! that day for Harry Gill!
That day he wore a riding-coat,
But not a whit the warmer he:
Another was on Thursday brought,
And ere the Sabbath he had three.

'T was all in vain, a useless matter,
And blankets were about him pinned;
Yet still his jaws and teeth they clatter,
Like a loose casement in the wind.
And Harry's flesh it fell away;
And all who see him say 't is plain,
That, live as long as live he may,
He never will be warm again.

No word to any man he utters,
A-bed or up, to young or old;
But ever to himself he mutters,
"Poor Harry Gill is very cold."
A-bed or up, by night or day;
His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
Now think, ye farmers, all, I pray,
Of Goody Blake and Harry Gill.

то

WRITTEN AFTER THE DEATH OF
CHARLES LAMB.

a good Man of most dear memory

This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart

From the great city where he first drew breath, Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his bread,

To the strict labors of the merchant's desk

By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks
Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress,
His spirit, but the recompense was high;
Firm Independence, Bounty's rightful sire;
Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air;
And when the precious hours of leisure came,
Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet
With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets
With a keen eye, and overflowing heart:
So genius triumphed over seeming wrong,
And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love
Inspired-works potent over smiles and tears.
And as round mountain-tops the lightning plays,
Thus innocently sported, breaking forth
As from a cloud of some grave sympathy,
Humor and wild instinctive wit, and all
The vivid flashes of his spoken words.

From the most gentle creature nursed in fields
Had been derived the name he bore-a name
Wherever Christian altars have been raised,
Hallowed to meekness and to innocence;
And if in him meekness at times gave way,
Provoked out of herself by troubles strange,
Many and strange, that hung about his life;
Still, at the centre of his being, lodged

A squl by resignation sanctified;

And if too often, self-reproached, he felt
That innocence belongs not to our kind,
A power that never ceased to abide in him,
Charity, 'mid the multitude of sins

That she can cover, left not his exposed
To an unforgiving judgment from just Heaven.
O, he was good, if ever a good man liv'd!

*

*

*

*

*

From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart.

Those simple lines flowed with an earnest wish, Though but a doubting hope, that they might serve Fitly to guard the precious dust of him

Whose virtues called them forth. That aim is

missed;

For much that truth most urgently required

Had from a faltering pen been asked in vain:
Yet, haply, on the printed page received,
The imperfect record, there, may stand unblamed
As long as verse of mine shall breathe the air
Of memory, or see the light of love.

Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend,
But more in show than truth; and from the fields,
And from the mountains, to thy rural grave
Transported, my soothed spirit hovers o'er
Its green untrodden turf, and blowing flowers;
And taking up a voice shall speak (though still
Awed by the theme's peculiar sanctity

Which words less free presumed not even to touch)
Of that fraternal love, whose heaven-lit lamp
From infancy, through manhood, to the last
Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour,
Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, enshrined
Within thy bosom.

[ocr errors]

"Wonderful" hath been

The love established between man and man,
Passing the love of women;" and between
Man and his help-mate in fast wedlock joined
Through God, is raised a spirit and soul of love
Without whose blissful influence Paradise
Had been no Paradise; and earth were now
A waste where creatures bearing human form,
Direst of savage beasts, would roam in fear,
Joyless and comfortless. Our days glide on;
And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve
That he hath been an elm without his Vine,
And her bright dower of clustering charities
That, round his trunk and branches, might have
clung

Enriching and adorning. Unto thee,

Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee
Was given (say rather thou of later birth
Wert given to her) a Sister-'t is a word
Timidly uttered, for she lives, the meek,
The self-restraining, and the ever-kind;
In whom thy reason and intelligent heart
Found-for all interests, hopes, and tender cares,
All softening, humanizing, hallowing powers.
Whether withheld, or for her sake unsought-
More than sufficient recompense!

Her love

(What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here?)

Was as the love of mothers; and when years,

Lifting the boy to man's estate, had called

The long-protected to assume the part

Of a protector, the first filial tie

Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight,
Remained imperishably interwoven

With life itself. Thus, 'mid a shifting world,
Did they together testify of time

And season's difference-a double tree

With two collateral stems sprung from one root; Such were they-such thro' life they might have been

In union, in partition only such;

Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High;
Yet, thro' all visitations and all trials,

Still they were faithful; like two vessels launched
From the same beach one ocean to explore
With mutual help, and sailing-to their league
True, as inexorable winds, or bars
Floating or fixed of polar ice, allow.

But turn we rather, let my spirit turn
With thine, O silent and invisible Friend!
To those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief,
When reunited, and by choice withdrawn
From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught
That the remembrance of foregone distress,
And the worse fear of future ill (which oft
Doth hang around it, as a sickly child
Upon its mother) may be both alike
Disarmed of power to unsettle present good.
So prized, and things inward and outward held.
In such an even balance, that the heart
Acknowledges God's grace, his mercy feels,
And in its depth of gratitude is still.

O gift divine of quiet sequestration!
The hermit, exercised in prayer and praise,
And feeding daily on the hope of heaven,
Is happy in his vow, and fondly cleaves

« FöregåendeFortsätt »