Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

On her at once superior to my woes
And Partner of my loss.-O heavy change!
Dimness o'er this clear Luminary crept
Insensibly; the immortal and divine
Yielded to mortal reflux; her pure Glory,
As from the pinnacle of, worldly state
Wretched Ambition drops astounded, fell
Into a gulph obscure of silent grief,
And keen heart-anguish-of itself ashamed,
Yet obstinately cherishing itself:

And, so consumed, She melted from my arms;
And left me, on this earth, disconsolate.

What followed cannot be reviewed in thougnt
Much less, retraced in words. If She of life
Blameless; so intimate with love and joy,
And all the tender motions of the Soul,
Had been supplanted, could I hope to stand?
Infirm, dependant, and now destitute !

I called on dreams and visions, to disclose
That which is veiled from waking thought; conjured
Eternity, as men constrain a Ghost

To appear and answer; to the Grave I spake
Imploringly-looked up, and asked the Heavens
If Angels traversed their cerulean floors,
If fixed or wandering Star could tidings yield
Of the departed Spirit-what Abode

It occupies-what consciousness retains
Of former loves and interests. Then my Soul
Turned inward,-to examine of what stuff
Time's fetters are composed; and Life was put
To inquisition, long and profitless!

By pain of heart-now checked-and now impelled→
The intellectual Power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!

And from those transports, and these toils abstruse,
Some trace am I enabled to retain

Of time, else lost; -existing unto me

Only by records in myself not found.'-pp. 125, 126, 127. The origin of Grecian fables is thus elegantly imagined. In that fair Clime, the lonely Herdsman, stretched On the soft grass through half a summer's day, With music lulled his indolent repose:

6

And, in some fit of weariness, if he

When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear
A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds
Which his poor skill could wake, his Fancy fetched,
Even from the blazing Chariot of the Sun,
A beardless Youth, who touched a goiden lute,
And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.

The nightly Hunter, lifting up his eyes
Towards the crescent Moon, with grateful heart
Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed
That timely light, to share his joyous sport:
And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs,
Across the lawn and through the darksome grove,
(Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes

By echo multiplied from rock or cave)

Swept in the storm of chase, as Moon and Stars
Glance rapidly along the clouded heavens,

When winds are blowing strong. The Traveller slaked
His thirst from Rill or gushing Fount, and thanked
The Naiad.-Sunbeams, upon distant Hills
Gliding apace, with Shadows in their train,

Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.

The Zephyrs, fanning as they passed, their wings,
Lacked not, for Love, fair Objects, whom they wooed
With gentle whisper. Withered Boughs grotesque,
Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth
In the low vale, or on steep mountain side;
And, sometimes, intermixed with stirring horns
Of the live Deer, or Goat's depending beard;
These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood
Of gamesome Deities! or Pan himself,

6

The simple Shepherd's awe-inspiring God.'-pp. 179, 180, The Poet and his two companions afterwards visit a 'Church Yard among the mountains,' where meeting with 'the Pastor,' he, at their request, records the names and worth of several persons, who lie buried there. These short and simple annals of the poor,'-short in detail, and simple in occurrence, are rendered exceedingly attractive, as well as dignified, by the rich and harmonious style in which they are told; and by many readers they will undoubtedly be deemed the most delightful portions of the work. We must be sparing of quotation. The subsequent remarks on contemplating the epitaphs in a Church yard, though sufficiently obvious, mey claim the merit of novelty.

I, for my part,

Though with the silence pleased which here prevails,
Among those fair recitals also range

Soothed by the natural spirit which they breathe. ̧
And, in the centre of a world whose soil

Is rank with all unkindness, compassed round

With such Memorials, I have sometimes 'felt

That 'twas no momentary happiness

To have one enclosure where the voice that speaks
In envy or detraction is not heard;

VOL. III. N.S.

D

Which malice may not enter: where the traces
Of evil inclinations are unknown;
Where love and pity tenderly unite
With resignation; and no jarring tone
Intrudes, the peaceful concert to disturb
Of amity and gratitude.'-pp. 278, 279.

We will not give utterance to a very harsh suspicion, which almost inevitably obtrudes itself, while we are considering the uniform language of panegyric, which tomb-stones are taught to speak; but we may observe, that if the world of the living resembled the world of the dead, in piety and virtue, this earth would only be a nursery for heaven.

A termagant Woman, of masculine intellect, but sordid views, is thus represented in her last hours.

A sudden illness seized her in the strength
Of life's autumnal season.-Shall I tell
How on her bed of death the Matron lay,
To Providence submissive, so she thought;
But fretted, vexed, and wrought upon-almost
To anger, by the malady, that griped
Her prostrate frame with unrelaxing_power,
As the fierce Eagle fastens on the Lamb.

She prayed, she moaned-her Husband's Sister watched
Her dreary pillow, waited on her needs;

And yet the very sound of that kind foot

Was anguish to her ears!" And must she rule,"
This was the dying Woman heard to say
In bitterness, and must she rule and reign,
"Sole Mistress of this house, when I am gone?
"Sit by my fire-possess what I possessed
"Tend what I tended-calling it her own!"
Enough;-I fear, too much.-Öf nobler feeling
Take this example.-One autumnal evening,
While she was yet in prime of health and strength,
I well remember, while I passed her door,
Musing with loitering step, and upward eye
Turned tow'rds the planet Jupiter, that hung

Above the centre of the Vale, a voice

Roused me, her voice; it said, "That glorious Star
"In its untroubled element will shine

"As now it shines, when we are laid in earth
"And safe from all our sorrows."-She is safe,
And her uncharitable acts I trust,

And harsh unkindnesses, are all forgiven;

Though, in this Vale, remembered with deep awe?"

The tale of poor re

pp. 283, 284, 285.

Ellen," will not yield in tender or tragic nterest to any one of the innumerable stories of seduction

and desertion, which abound in prose and rhyme. We can only
select one beautiful incident, which reads as if it were a real one.
-Beside the Cottage in which Ellen dwelt
Stands a tall ash-tree; to whose topmost twig
A Thrush resorts, and annually chaunts,
At morn and evening from that naked perch,,
While all the undergrove is thick with leaves,
A time-beguiling ditty, for delight

Of his fond partner, silent in the nest.

"Ah why," said Ellen, sighing to herself, "Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge; "And nature that is kind in Woman's breast, "And reason that in Man is wise and good, And fear of him who is a righteous Judge, "Why do not these prevail for human life, "To keep two Hearts together, that began "Their spring-time with one love, and that have need "Of mutual pity and forgiveness, sweet

"To grant, or be received, while that poor Bird,

[ocr errors]

O come and hear him! Thou who hast to me "Been faithless, hear him, though a lowly Creature, "One of God's simple children that yet know not "The universal Parent, how he sings

"As if he wished the firmament of Heaven
"Should listen, and give back to him the voice
"Of his triumphant constancy and love;
"The proclamation that he makes, how far
"His darkness doth transcend our fickle light!".
Such was the tender passage, not by me
Repeated without loss of simple phrase,
Which I perused, even as the words had been
Committed by forsaken Ellen's hand

To the blank margin of a Valentine,

1

Bedropped with tears.'-pp. 289, 290.

The history of the Priest, who emigrated with his family, like a band of gipsies, from Northumberland, and dwelt in a neighbouring hamlet, is very lively and striking. After a residence of forty years at the rustic parsonage, they all went down to the grave in half of that number of months.

Our very first in eminence of years,

This old Man stood, the Patriarch of the Vale!
And, to his unmolested mansion, Death

Had never come, through space of forty years;
Sparing both old and young in that Abode.
Suddenly then they disappeared:-not twice

Had summer scorched the fields,not twice had fallen
On those high Peaks, the first autumnal snow,—

Before the greedy visiting was closed

And the long-privileged House left empty-swept
As by a plague; yet no rapacious plague

Had been among them; all was gentle death,
One after one, with intervals of peace.
-A happy consummation! an accord

Sweet, perfect, to be wished for! save that here
Was something which to mortal sense might sound
Like harshness, that the old grey-headed Sire,
The oldest, he was taken last, survived
When the meek Partner of his age, his Son,
His Daughter, and that late and high-prized gift,
His little smiling Grandchild, were no more.

"All gone, all vanished! he deprived and bare,
"How will he face the remnant of his life?
"What will become of him?" we said, and mused
In sad conjectures, "Shall we meet him now
"Haunting with rod and line the craggy brooks?
Or shall we overhear him, as we pass,
"Striving to entertain the lonely hours
"With music?" (for he had not ceased to touch
The harp or viol which himself had framed,
For their sweet purposes, with perfect skill.)
"What titles will he keep? will he remain
"Musician, Gardener, Builder, Mechanist,
"A Planter, and a rearer from the Seed?
"A Man of hope and forward-looking mind
"Even to the last !"- -Such was he, unsubdued.
But Heaven was gracious; yet a little while,
And this Survivor, with his cheerful throng
Of open schemes, and all his inward hoard
Of unsunned griefs, too many and too keen,
Was overcome by unexpected sleep,

[ocr errors]

In one blest moment. Like a shadow thrown
Softly and lightly from a passing cloud,
Death fell upon him, while reclined he lay
For noon-tide solace on the summer grass,
The warm lap of his Mother Earth and so,
Their lenient term of separation past,
That Family (whose graves you there behold)
By yet a higher privilege, once more

:

Were gathered to each other.-pp. 321, 322, 323.

We never met with a more gentle image of Death than the passing cloud :-nor with a more peaceful image of life than in the Deaf Man.'

There, beneath

A plain blue Stone, a gentle Dalesman lies,
From whom, in early childhood, was withdrawn
The precious gift of hearing. He grew up
From year to year in loneliness of soul;
And this deep mountain Valley was to him
Soundless, with all its streams. The bird of dawn
Did never rouse this Cottager from sleep
With startling summons; not for his delight.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »