Floats on the tossing waves.
With joy sincere I re-salute these sentiments confirmed By your authority. But how acquire The inward principle that gives effect To outward argument; the passive will Meek to admit; the active energy, Strong and unbounded to embrace, and firm To keep and cherish? how shall man unite With self-forgetting tenderness of heart An earth-despising dignity of soul?
Wise in that union, and without it blind!"
"The way," said I, "to court, if not obtain The ingenuous mind, apt to be set aright; This, in the lonely dell discoursing, you Declared at large; and by what exercise From visible nature, or the inner self Power may be trained, and renovation brought To those who need the gift. But, after all, Is aught so certain as that man is doomed To breathe beneath a vault of ignorance? The natural roof of that dark house in which His soul is pent! How little can be known- This is the wise man's sigh; how far we err- This is the good man's not unfrequent pang! And they perhaps err least, the lowly class Whom a benign necessity compels
To follow reason's least ambitious course; Such do I mean who, unperplexed by doubt, And unincited by a wish to look
Into high objects farther than they may, Pace to and fro, from morn till even-tide, The narrow avenue of daily toil
"Yes," buoyantly exclaimed The pale Recluse-" praise to the sturdy plough, And patient spade; praise to the simple crook, And ponderous loom-resounding while it holds
Body and mind in one captivity;
And let the light mechanic tool be hailed With honour; which, encasing by the power Of long companionship, the artist's hand, Cuts off that hand, with all its world of nerves, From a too busy commerce with the heart! -Inglorious implements of craft and toil, Both ye that shape and build, and ye that force, By slow solicitation, earth to yield
Her annual bounty, sparingly dealt forth With wise reluctance; you would I extol, Not for gross good alone which ye produce, But for the impertinent and ceaseless strife Of proofs and reasons ye preclude—in those Who to your dull society are born, And with their humble birthright rest content. -Would I had ne'er renounced it!"
A slight flush Of moral anger previously had tinged The old Man's cheek; but, at this closing turn Of self-reproach, it passed away. Said he, "That which we feel we utter; as we think So have we argued; reaping for our pains No visible recompense. For our relief You," to the Pastor turning thus he spake, "Have kindly interposed. May I entreat Your further help? The mine of real life Dig for us; and present us, in the shape Of virgin ore, that gold which we, by pains Fruitless as those of aëry alchemists, Seek from the torturing crucible. There lies Around us a domain where you have long
Watched both the outward course and inner heart: Give us, for our abstractions, solid facts;
For our disputes, plain pictures. Say what man He is who cultivates yon hanging field; What qualities of mind she bears, who comes, For morn and evening service, with her pail,
To that green pasture; place before our sight The family who dwell within yon house Fenced round with glittering laurel; or in that Below, from which the curling smoke ascends. Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,
And have the dead around us, take from them Your instances; for they are both best known, And by frail man most equitably judged. Epitomise the life; pronounce, you can, Authentic epitaphs on some of these
Who, from their lowly mansions hither brought, Beneath this turf lie mouldering at our feet: So, by your records, may our doubts be solved; And so, not searching higher, we may learn To prize the breath we share with human kind; And look upon the dust of man with awe."
The Priest replied-" An office you impose For which peculiar requisites are mine; Yet much, I feel, is wanting else the task Would be most grateful. True indeed it is That they whom death has hidden from our sight Are worthiest of the mind's regard; with these The future cannot contradict the past: Mortality's last exercise and proof
Is undergone; the transit made that shows The very Soul, revealed as she departs. Yet, on your first suggestion, will I give, Ere we descend into these silent vaults, One picture from the living.
High on the breast of yon dark mountain, dark
With stony barrenness, a shining speck
Bright as a sunbeam sleeping till a shower
Brush it away, or cloud pass over it;
And such it might be deemed-a sleeping sunbeam;
But 'tis a plot of cultivated ground,
Cut off, an island in the dusky waste;
And that attractive brightness is its own. The lofty sight, by nature framed to tempt Amid a wilderness of rocks and stones
The tiller's hand, a hermit might have chosen, For opportunity presented, thence
Far forth to send his wandering eye o'er land And ocean, and look down upon the works, The habitations, and the ways of men, Himself unseen! But no tradition tells That ever hermit dipped his maple dish
In the sweet spring that lurks 'mid yon green fields ; And no such visionary views belong
To those who occupy and till the ground,
High on that mountain where they long have dwelt A wedded pair in childless solitude.
A house of stones collected on the spot,
By rude hands built, with rocky knolls in front, Backed also by a ledge of rock, whose crest Of birch-trees waves over the chimney top; A rough abode-in colour, shape, and size, Such as in unsafe times of border-war
Might have been wished for and contrived, to elude The eye of roving plunderer-for their need Suffices; and unshaken bears the assault
Of their most dreaded foe, the strong South-west In anger blowing from the distant sea. -Alone within her solitary hut;
There, or within the compass of her fields, At any moment may the Dame be found, True as the stock-dove to her shallow nest And to the grove that holds it. She beguiles By intermingled work of house and field The summer's day, and winter's; with success Not equal, but sufficient to maintain,
Even at the worst, a smooth stream of content, Until the expected hour at which her Mate From the far-distant quarry's vault returns; And by his converse crowns a silent day
With evening cheerfulness. In powers of mind, In scale of culture, few among my flock Hold lower rank than this sequestered pair: But true humility descends from heaven; And that best gift of heaven hath fallen on them; Abundant recompense for every want.
-Stoop from your height, ye proud, and copy these! Who, in their noiseless dwelling-place, can hear The voice of wisdom whispering scripture texts For the mind's government, or temper's peace; And recommending for their mutual need, Forgiveness, patience, hope, and charity!
"Much was I pleased," the grey-haired Wanderer said,
"When to those shining fields our notice first You turned; and yet more pleased have from your
Gathered this fair report of them who dwell In that retirement; whither, by such course Of evil hap and good as oft awaits
A tired way-faring man, once I was brought While traversing alone yon mountain pass. Dark on my road the autumnal evening fell, And night succeeded with unusual gloom, So hazardous that feet and hands became Guides better than mine eyes-until a light High in the gloom appeared, too high, methought, For human habitation; but I longed
To reach it, destitute of other hope.
I looked with steadiness as sailors look
On the north star, or watch-tower's distant lamp, And saw the light-now fixed-and shifting now- Not like a dancing meteor, but in line Of never-varying motion, to and fro. It is no night-fire of the naked hills,
Thought I-some friendly covert must be near. With this persuasion thitherward my steps
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