Among the hills of Athol he was born; Where, on a small hereditary farm, An unproductive slip of rugged ground,
His Parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt; A virtuous household, though exceeding poor! Pure livers were they all, austere and grave, And fearing God; the very children taught Stern self-respect, and reverence for God's word, And an habitual piety, maintained
With strictness scarcely known on English ground.
From his sixth year, the Boy of whom I speak, In summer, tended cattle on the hills;
But, through the inclement and the perilous days Of long-continuing winter, he repaired, Equipped with satchel, to a school that stood Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge, Remote from view of city spire, or sound
Of minster clock! From that bleak tenement He, many an evening, to his distant home In solitude returning, saw the hills Grow larger in the darkness; all alone Beheld the stars come out above his head, And travelled through the wood, with no one near To whom he might confess the things he saw.
So the foundations of his mind were laid. In such communion, not from terror free, While yet a child, and long before his time, Had he perceived the presence and the power
Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed So vividly great objects, that they lay Upon his mind like substances, whose presence Perplexed the bodily sense. He had received A precious gift; for, as he grew in years, With these impressions would he still compare All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms And, being still unsatisfied with aught Of dimmer character, he thence attained An active power to fasten images
Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines Intensely brooded, even till they acquired The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he fail, While yet a child, with a child's eagerness Incessantly to turn his ear and eye
On all things which the moving seasons brought To feed such appetite, nor this alone Appeased his yearning: in the after-day Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn, And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags, He sat, and even in their fixed lineaments, Or from the power of a peculiar eye, Or by creative feeling overborne, Or by predominance of thought oppressed, Even in their fixed and steady lineaments He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind, Expression ever varying!
He had small need of books; for many a tale Traditionary round the mountains hung,
And many a legend, peopling the dark woods, Nourished Imagination in her growth, And gave the Mind that apprehensive power By which she is made quick to recognize The moral properties and scope of things. But eagerly he read, and read again, Whate'er the minister's old shelf supplied; The life and death of martyrs, who sustained, With will inflexible, those fearful pangs Triumphantly displayed in records left Of persecution, and the Covenant, - times Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour! And there, by lucky hap, had been preserved A straggling volume, torn and incomplete, That left half-told the preternatural tale, Romance of giants, chronicle of fiends, Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts
Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire, Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled too, With long and ghostly shanks, - forms which once
Could never be forgotten!
Where Fear sat thus, a cherished visitant, Was wanting yet the pure delight of love By sound diffused, or by the breathing air, Or by the silent looks of happy things, Or flowing from the universal face
Of earth and sky. But he had felt the power Of Nature, and already was prepared,
By his intense conceptions, to receive Deeply the lesson deep of love which he Whom Nature, by whatever means, has taught To feel intensely, cannot but receive.
What soul was his, when, from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked: Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay
Beneath him; far and wide the clouds were touched, And in their silent faces could he read Unutterable love. Sound needed none, Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank The spectacle sensation, soul, and form, All melted into him; they swallowed up His animal being; in them did he live, And by them did he live; they were his life. In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living God,
Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired. No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request; Rapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power That made him; it was blessedness and love!
A Herdsman on the lonely mountain-tops, Such intercourse was his, and in this sort
Was his existence oftentimes possessed. O then how beautiful, how bright, appeared The written promise! Early had he learned To reverence the volume that displays The mystery, the life which cannot die ; But in the mountains did he feel his faith. All things, responsive to the writing, there Breathed immortality, revolving life, And greatness still revolving; infinite: There littleness was not; the least of things Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped Her prospects, nor did he believe, — he saw. What wonder if his being thus became Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires, Low thoughts, had there no place; yet was his heart Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude,
Oft as he called those ecstasies to mind,
And whence they flowed; and from them he acquired
Wisdom, which works through patience; thence he learned
In oft-recurring hours of sober thought
To look on Nature with a humble heart, Self-questioned where it did not understand, And with a superstitious eye of love.
So passed the time; yet to the nearest town He duly went with what small overplus His earnings might supply, and brought away The book that most had tempted his desires
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