I turn, and reach at last the guiding light;
Joy to myself! but to the heart of her
Who there was standing on the open hill,

(The same kind Matron whom your tongue hath praised)

Alarm and disappointment! The alarm

Ceased, when she learned through what mishap I

came,

And by what help had gained those distant fields.
Drawn from her cottage, on that aëry height,
Bearing a lantern in her hand she stood,

Or paced the ground-to guide her Husband home,
By that unwearied signal, kenned afar;
An anxious duty! which the lofty site,
Traversed but by a few irregular paths,
Imposes, whensoe'er untoward chance
Detains him after his accustomed hour
Till night lies black upon the ground. But come,
Come,' said the Matron, 'to our poor abode ;
Those dark rocks hide it!' Entering, I beheld
A blazing fire-beside a cleanly hearth

Sate down; and to her office, with leave asked,
The Dame returned.

Or ere that glowing pile
Of mountain turf required the builder's hand
Its wasted splendour to repair, the door
Opened, and she re-entered with glad looks,
Her Helpmate following. Hospitable fare,
Frank conversation, made the evening's treat:
Need a bewildered traveller wish for more ?
But more was given; I studied as we sate
By the bright fire, the good Man's form, and face
Not less than beautiful; an open brow
Of undisturbed humanity; a cheek
Suffused with something of a feminine hue;
Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard;
But, in the quicker turns of the discourse,
Expression slowly varying, that evinced

A tardy apprehension. From a fount
Lost, thought I, in the obscurities of time,
But honoured once, those features and that mien
May have descended, though I see them here.
In such a man, so gentle and subdued,
Withal so graceful in his gentleness,
A race illustrious for heroic deeds,
Humbled, but not degraded, may expire.
This pleasing fancy (cherished and upheld
By sundry recollections of such fall
From high to low, ascent from low to high,
As books record, and even the careless mind
Cannot but notice among men and things)
Went with me to the place of my repose.

Roused by the crowing cock at dawn of day,
I yet had risen too late to interchange
A morning salutation with my Host,
Gone forth already to the far-off seat

Of his day's work. 'Three dark mid-winter months

'Pass,' said the Matron, and I never see,

'Save when the sabbath brings its kind release,

My helpmate's face by light of day. He quits

His door in darkness, nor till dusk returns.

And, through Heaven's blessing, thus we gain the bread

'For which we pray; and for the wants provide 'Of sickness, accident, and helpless age.

'Companions have I many; many friends,

Dependants, comforters-my wheel, my fire, 'All day the house-clock ticking in mine ear, 'The cackling hen, the tender chicken brood, 'And the wild birds that gather round my porch. 'This honest sheep-dog's countenance I read ; 'With him can talk; nor blush to waste a word 'On creatures less intelligent and shrewd.

'Care not for me, he lingers round my door,

And makes me pastime when our tempers suit ;But, above all, my thoughts are my support,

My comfort -would that they were oftener fixed
6 On what, for guidance in the way that leads
'To heaven, I know, by my Redeemer taught.'
The Matron ended-nor could I forbear
To exclaim-O happy! yielding to the law
Of these privations, richer in the main !—
While thankless thousands are opprest and clogged
By ease and leisure; by the very wealth
And pride of opportunity made poor;

While tens of thousands falter in their path,
And sink, through utter want of cheering light;
For you the hours of labour do not flag;
For you each evening hath its shining star,
And every sabbath-day its golden sun.'

"Yes!" said the Solitary with a smile That seemed to break from an expanding heart, "The untutored bird may found, and so construct, And with such soft materials line, her nest Fixed in the centre of a prickly brake,

That the thorns wound her not; they only guard.
Powers not unjustly likened to those gifts
Of happy instinct which the woodland bird
Shares with her species, nature's grace sometimes
Upon the individual doth confer,

Among her higher creatures born and trained
To use of reason. And, I own that, tired
Of the ostentatious world-a swelling stage
With empty actions and vain passions stuffed,
And from the private struggles of mankind
Hoping far less than I could wish to hope,
Far less than once I trusted and believed-
I love to hear of those, who, not contending
Nor summoned to contend for virtue's prize,
Miss not the humbler good at which they aim,

Blest with a kindly faculty to blunt
The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn
Into their contraries the petty plagues

And hindrances with which they stand beset.
In early youth, among my native hills,

I knew a Scottish Peasant who possessed
A few small crofts of stone-encumbered ground;
Masses of every shape and size, that lay
Scattered about under the mouldering walls
Of a rough precipice; and some, apart,
In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,

As if the moon had showered them down in spite.
But he repined not. Though the plough was scared
By these obstructions, 'round the shady stones
A fertilising moisture,' said the Swain,

Gathers, and is preserved; and feeding dews 'And damps, through all the droughty summer day

'From out their substance issuing, maintain
Herbage that never fails: no grass springs up
'So green, so fresh, so plentiful, as mine!
But thinly sown these natures; rare, at least,
The mutual aptitude of seed and soil

That yields such kindly product. He, whose bed
Perhaps yon loose sods cover, the poor Pensioner
Brought yesterday from our sequestered dell
Here to lie down in lasting quiet, he,

If living now, could otherwise report

Of rustic loneliness: that grey-haired Orphan-
So call him, for humanity to him

No parent was-feelingly could have told,
In life, in death, what solitude can breed

Of selfishness, and cruelty, and vice;
Or, if it breed not, hath not power to cure.
—But your compliance, Sir! with our request
My words too long have hindered."

Perhaps incited rather, by these shocks,

Undeterred,

In no ungracious opposition, given
To the confiding spirit of his own
Experienced faith, the reverend Pastor said,
Around him looking; "Where shall I begin?
Who shall be first selected from my flock
Gathered together in their peaceful fold?"
He paused-and having lifted up his eyes
To the pure heaven, he cast them down again
Upon the earth beneath his feet; and spake :—

"To a mysteriously-united pair

This place is consecrate; to Death and Life,
And to the best affections that proceed
From their conjunction; consecrate to faith
In him who bled for man upon the cross;
Hallowed to revelation; and no less

To reason's mandates; and the hopes divine
Of pure imagination ;-above all,

To charity, and love, that have provided,
Within these precincts, a capacious bed
And receptacle, open to the good
And evil, to the just and the unjust;
In which they find an equal resting-place:

Even as the multitude of kindred brooks

And streams, whose murmur fills this hollow vale,
Whether their course be turbulent or smooth,

Their waters clear or sullied, all are lost
Within the bosom of yon crystal Lake,

And end their journey in the same repose!

And blest are they who sleep; and we that know,
While in a spot like this we breathe and walk,
That all beneath us by the wings are covered
Of motherly humanity, outspread

And gathering all within their tender shade,
Though loth and slow to come! A battle-field,
In stillness left when slaughter is no more,
With this compared, makes a strange spectacle !