To intercept the sun's glad beams-may ne'er That true succession fail of English hearts, Who, with ancestral feeling, can perceive What in those holy structures ye possess Of ornamental interest, and the charm Of pious sentiment diffused afar, And human charity, and social love. -Thus never shall the indignities of time
¦ Approach their reverend graces, unopposed; Nor shall the elements be free to hurt Their fair proportions; nor the blinder rage Of bigot zeal madly to overturn; And, if the desolating hand of war Spare them, they shall continue to bestow, Upon the thronged abodes of busy men (Depraved, and ever prone to fill the mind Exclusively with transitory things) An air and mien of dignified pursuit ; Of sweet civility, on rustic wilds.
The Poet, fostering for his native land Such hope, entreats that servants may abound Of those pure altars worthy; ministers Detached from pleasure, to the love of gain Superior, insusceptible of pride,
And by ambitious longings undisturbed; Men, whose delight is where their duty leads Or fixes them; whose least distinguished day Shines with some portion of that heavenly lustre Which makes the sabbath lovely in the sight Of blessed angels, pitying human cares. -And, as on earth it is the doom of truth To be perpetually attacked by foes Open or covert, be that priesthood still, For her defence, replenished with a band Of strenuous champions, in scholastic arts Thoroughly disciplined; nor (if in course Of the revolving world's disturbances
Cause should recur, which righteous Heaven avert! To meet such trial) from their spiritual sires Degenerate; who, constrained to wield the sword Of disputation, shrunk not, though assailed With hostile din, and combating in sight Of angry umpires, partial and unjust; And did, thereafter, bathe their hands in fire, So to declare the conscience satisfied: Nor for their bodies would accept release; Eut, blessing God and praising him, bequeathed With their last breath, from out the smouldering flame,
The faith which they by diligence had earned, Or, through illuminating grace, received, For their dear countrymen, and all mankind. O high example, constancy divine!
Even such a Man (inheriting the zeal And from the sanctity of elder times Not deviating,—a priest, the like of whom, If multiplied, and in their stations set, Would o'er the bosom of a joyful land Spread true religion and her genuine fruits) Before me stood that day; on holy ground Fraught with the relics of mortality, Exalting tender themes, by just degrees To lofty raised; and to the highest, last; The head and mighty paramount of truths,Immortal life, in never-fading worlds, For mortal creatures, conquered and secured.
That basis laid, those principles of faith Announced, as a preparatory act
Of reverence done to the spirit of the place, The Pastor cast his eyes upon the ground; Not, as before, like one oppressed with awe, But with a mild and social cheerfulness; Then to the Solitary turned, and spake.
"At morn or eve, in your retired domain, Perchance you not unfrequently have marked A Visitor-in quest of herbs and flowers; Too delicate employ, as would appear, For one, who, though of drooping mien, had yet From nature's kindliness received a frame Robust as ever rural labour bred."
The Solitary answered: "Such a Form Full well I recollect. We often crossed Each other's path; but, as the Intruder seemed Fondly to prize the silence which he kept, And I as willingly did cherish mine,
We met, and passed, like shadows. I have heard, From my good Host, that being crazed in brain By unrequited love, he scaled the rocks, Dived into caves, and pierced the matted woods, In hope to find some virtuous herb of power To cure his malady !”
The Vicar smiled,- "Alas! before to-morrow's sun goes down His habitation will be here: for him That open grave is destined."
Of pain and grief?" the Solitary asked, "Do not believe it; never could that be!"
"He loved," the Vicar answered," deeply loved, Loved fondly, truly, fervently; and dared At length to tell his love, but sued in vain; Rejected, yea repelled; and, if with scorn Upon the haughty maiden's brow, 'tis but
A high-prized plume which female Beauty wears In wantonness of conquest, or puts on To cheat the world, or from herself to hide Humiliation, when no longer free.
That he could brook, and glory in ;—but when The tidings came that she whom he had wooed Was wedded to another, and his heart Was forced to rend away its only hope; Then, Pity could have scarcely found on earth An object worthier of regard than he, In the transition of that bitter hour! Lost was she, lost; nor could the Sufferer say That in the act of preference he had been Unjustly dealt with; but the Maid was gone! Had vanished from his prospects and desires; Not by translation to the heavenly choir 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 must be 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 stedfast quiet natural to a mind Of composition gentle and sedate, And, in its movements, circumspect and slow. To books, and to the long-forsaken desk, O'er which enchained by science he had loved To bend, he stoutly re-addressed himself, Resolved to quell his pain, and search for truth With keener appetite (if that might be)
And closer industry. Of what ensued
Within the heart no outward sign appeared
Till a betraying sickliness was seen
"Where health abides, and cheerfulness, and peace,' The 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 the soul, fountains 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 to impatience, if," exclaimed The Wanderer, "I infer that he was healed By perseverance in the course prescribed.”
"You do not err: the powers, that 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 the fulness of his strength, 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-with one, but one, request; That, from his dying hand, she would accept Of his possessions that which most he prized; A book, upon whose leaves some chosen plants, By his own hand disposed with nicest care, In undecaying beauty were preserved;
To tinge his cheek; and through his frame it crept Mute register, to him, of time and place,
With slow mutation unconcealable;
Such universal change as autumn makes
In the fair body of a leafy grove
Discoloured, then divested.
By poets skilled in nature's secret ways That Love will not submit to be controlled
By mastery:-and the good Man lacked not friends Who strove to 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
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 who achieved a humbler victory, Though marvellous in its kind. A place there is High in these mountains, that allured a band
Of keen adventurers to unite their pains
In search of precious ore: they tried, were foiled—
And all desisted, all, save him alone. He, taking counsel of his own clear thoughts,
Court the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods; And trusting only to his own weak hands,
" 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
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 his view And trembling grasp the long-deferred 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,
Wishes and endless schemes; by 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, unterrified ;' Grant to the wise his firmness of resolve!"
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 that 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, lighter than he; And not a flower, that droops in the green shade, More winningly reserved! If ye enquire How such consummate elegance was bred Amid these wilds, this answer may suffice; '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 farther 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,
"That prayer were not superfluous," said the Cherished for him, he suffered to depart,
* 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, farther 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 Recals!
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; from these bare 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 No 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. -Such the too frequent tenour 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, different in 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 them that sleep."
"Tis strange," observed the Solitary, "strange It seems, and scarcely less than pitiful, That in a land where charity provides For all that 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, 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?"
"Yes," said the Priest, "the Genius of our hillsWho seems, by these stupendous barriers cast Round his domain, desirous not alone To keep his own, but also to exclude All other progeny-doth sometimes lure, Even by his studied depth of privacy, The unhappy alien hoping to obtain Concealment, or seduced by wish to find, In place from outward molestation free, Helps to internal ease. Of many such Could I discourse; but as their stay was brief, So their departure only left behind Fancies, and loose conjectures. Other trace Survives, for worthy mention, of a pair Who, from the pressure of their several fates, Meeting as strangers, in a petty town Whose blue roofs ornament a distant reach Of this far-winding vale, remained as friends True to their choice; and gave their bones in trast To this loved cemetery, here to lodge With unescutcheoned privacy interred Far from the family vault.-A Chieftain one By right of birth; within whose spotless breast The fire of ancient Caledonia burned: He, with the foremost whose impatience hailed The Stuart, landing to resume, by force Of arms, the crown which bigotry had lost, Aroused his clan; and, fighting at their head, With his brave sword endeavoured to prevent Culloden's fatal overthrow. Escaped From that disastrous rout, to foreign shores He fled; and when the lenient hand of time Those troubles had appeased, he sought and gaine For his obscured condition, an obscure Retreat, within this nook of English ground.
The other, born in Britain's southern tract, Had fixed his milder loyalty, and placed His gentler sentiments of love and hate, There, where they placed them who in conscience prized
The new succession, as a line of kings Whose oath had virtue to protect the land Against the dire assaults of papacy
And arbitrary rule. But launch thy bark On the distempered flood of public life, And cause for most rare triumph will be thine If, spite of keenest eye and steadiest hand, The stream, that bears thee forward, prove not, soon Or late, a perilous master. He-who oft, Beneath the battlements and stately trees That round his mansion cast a sober gloom, Had moralised on this, and other truths Of kindred import, pleased and satisfied— Was forced to vent his wisdom with a sigh Heaved from the heart in fortune's bitterness, When he had crushed a plentiful estate By rainous contest, to obtain a sent
In Britain's senate. Fruitless was the attempt: And while the uproar of that desperate strife Continued yet to vibrate on his ear, The vanquished Whig, under a borrowed name, (For the mere sound and echo of his own Haunted him with sensations of disgust That he was glad to lose) slunk from the world To the deep shade of those untravelled Wilds; In which the Scottish Laird had long possessed An undisturbed abode. Here, then, they met, Two doughty champions; flaming Jacobite And sullen Hanoverian! You might think That losses and vexations, less severe Than those which they had severally sustained, Would have inclined each to abate his zeal For his ungrateful cause; no,—I have heard My reverend Father tell that, 'mid the calm Of that small town encountering thus, they filled, Daily, its bowling-green with harmless strife; Plagued with uncharitable thoughts the church; And vexed the market-place. But in the breasts Of these opponents gradually was wrought, With little change of general sentiment, Such leaning towards each other, that their days By choice were spent in constant fellowship; And if, at times, they fretted with the yoke, Those very bickerings made them love it more.
A favourite boundary to their lengthened walks This Church-yard was. And, whether they had come Treading their path in sympathy and linked In social converse, or by some short space Discreetly parted to preserve the peace, One spirit seldom failed to extend its sway Over both minds, when they awhile had marked The visible quiet of this holy ground,
And saintly magnanimity; that-spurning The field of selfish difference and dispute, And every care which transitory things, Earth and the kingdoms of the earth, create- Doth, by a rapture of forgetfulness, Preclude forgiveness, from the praise debarred, Which else the Christian virtue might have claimed.
There live who yet remember here to have seen Their courtly figures, seated on the stump Of an old yew, their favourite resting-place. But as the remnant of the long-lived tree Was disappearing by a swift decay, They, with joint care, determined to erect, Upon its site, a dial, that might stand For public use preserved, and thus survive As their own private monument: for this Was the particular spot, in which they wished (And Heaven was pleased to accomplish the desire) That, undivided, their remains should lie.
So, where the mouldered tree had stood, was raised Yon structure, framing, with the ascent of steps That to the decorated pillar lead,
A work of art more sumptuous than might seem To suit this place; yet built in no proud scorn Of rustic homeliness; they only aimed To ensure for it respectful guardianship. Around the margin of the plate, whereon The shadow falls to note the stealthy hours, Winds an inscriptive legend."-At these words Thither we turned; and gathered, as we read, The appropriate sense, in Latin numbers couched : Time flies; it is his melancholy task To bring, and bear away, delusive hopes, And re-produce the troubles he destroys. But, while his blindness thus is occupied, Discerning Mortal! do thou serve the will Of Time's eternal Master, and that peace, Which the world wants,shall be for thee confirmed!'
"Smooth verse, inspired by no unlettered Muse," Exclaimed the Sceptic, “and the strain of thought Accords with nature's language;-the soft voice Of yon white torrent falling down the rocks Speaks, less distinctly, to the same effect. If, then, their blended influence be not lost Upon our hearts, not wholly lost, I grant, Even upon mine, the more are we required To feel for those among our fellow-men, Who, offering no obeisance to the world, Are yet made desperate by too quick a sense Of constant infelicity,' cut off
From peace like exiles on some barren rock,
And breathed its soothing air-the spirit of hope Their life's appointed prison; not more free
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