One deeper than another, self-condemned,
Through manitold degrees of guilt and shame,
So manifold and various are the ways
Of restoration, fashioned to the steps
Of all infirmity, and tending all
To the same point,-attainable by all;
Peace in ourselves, and union with our God.
For you, assuredly, a hopeful road
Lies open we have heard from you a voice
At every moment softened in its course
By tenderness of heart; have seen your eye,
Even like an altar lit by fire from heaven,
Kindle before us. -Your discourse this day,
That, like the fabled Lethe, wished to flow
In creeping sadness, through oblivious shades
Of death and night, has caught at every turn
The colours of the sun. Access for you
Is yet preserved to principles of truth,
Which the imaginative will upholds
In seats of wisdom, not to be approached
By the inferior faculty that moulds,
With her minute and speculative pains,
Opinion, ever changing!--I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within
Were heard, sonorous cadences! whereby
To his belief, the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of faith; and there are times,
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things;
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power;
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation. Here you stand,
Adore, and worship, when you know it not ;
Pious beyond the intention of your thought;
Devout above the meaning of your will.
Yes, you have felt, and may not cease to feel.
The estate of man would be indeed forlorn
If false conclusions of the reasoning power
Made the eve blind, and closed the passages
Through which the ear converses with the heart.
Has not the soul, the being of your life,
Received a shock of awful consciousness,
In some calm season, when these lofty rocks
At night's approach bring down the unclouded sky.
To rest upon their circumambient walls;
A temple framing of dimensions vast,
And yet not too enormous for the sound
Of human anthems,-choral song, or burst
Sublime of instrumental harmony,
To glorify the Eternal! What if these
Did never break the stillness that prevails
Here, if the solemn nightingale be mute,
And the soft woodlark here did never chant
Her vespers, nature fails not to provide
Impulse and utterance. The whispering air
Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights,
And blind recesses of the caverned rocks;
The little rills, and waters numberless,
Inaudible by daylight, blend their notes
With the loud streams and often, at the hour
When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard,
Within the circuit of this fabric huge,
One voice-the solitary raven, flying
Athwart the concave of the dark-blue dome,
Unseen, perchance above all power of sight-
An iron knell! with echoes from afar
Faint-and still fainter-as the cry, with which
The wanderer accompanies her flight
Through the calm region, fades upon the ear,
Diminishing by distance till it seemed
To expire, yet from the abyss is caught again
And yet again recovered!
But descending
From these imaginative heights, that yield
Far-stretching views into eternity,
Acknowledge that to nature's humbler power
Your cherished sullenness is forced to bend
Even here, where her amenities are sown
With sparing hand. Then trust yourself abroad
To range her blooming bowers, and spacious fields,
Where on the labours of the happy throng
She smiles, including in her wide embrace
City, and town, and tower,-and sea with ships
Sprinkled ;-be our companion while we track
Her rivers populous with gliding life;
While, free as air, o'er printless sands we march,
Or pierce the gloom of her majestic woods;
Roaming, or resting under grateful shade
In peace and meditative cheerfulness;
Where living things, and things inanimate,
Do speak, at Heaven's command, to eye and ear,
And speak to social reason's inner sense,
With inarticulate language.
Who, in this spirit, communes with the forms
Of nature, who with understanding heart
Doth know and love such objects as excite
No morbid passions, no disquietude,
No vengeance, and no hatred, needs must feel
The joy of that pure principle of love
So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught
Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose
But seek for objects of a kindred love
In fellow-natures, and a kindred joy.
Accordingly he by degrees perceives
His feelings of aversion softened down;
A holy tenderness pervade his frame.
His sanity of reason not impaired,
Say rather, all his thoughts now flowing clear,
From a clear fountain flowing, he looks round And seeks for good; and finds the good he seeks; Until abhorrence and contempt are things
He only knows by name; and if he hear,
From other mouths, the language which they speak,
He is compassionate; and has no thought,
No feeling, which can overcome his love.
"And further; by contemplating these forms
In the relations which they bear to man,
He shall discern, how, through the various
Which silently they yield, are multiplied
The spiritual presences of absent things.
Trust me, that for the instructed, time will come
When they shall meet no object but may teach
Some acceptable lesson to their minds
Of human suffering, or of human joy.
So shall they learn, while all things speak of man,
Their duties from all forms; and general laws,
And local accidents, shall tend alike
To rouse, to urge; and, with the will, confer
The ability to spread the blessings wide
Of true philanthropy. The light of love
Not failing, perseverance from their steps
Departing not, for them shall be confirmed
The glorious habit by which sense is made
Subservient still to moral purposes,
Auxiliar to divine. That change shall clothe
The naked spirit, ceasing to deplore
The burthen of existence. Science then
Shall be a precious visitant; and then,
And only then, be worthy of her name.
For then her heart shall kindle; her dull eye,
Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang
Chained to its object in brute slavery;
But taught with patient interest to watch
The processes of things, and serve the cause
Of order and distinctness, not for this
Shall it forget that its most noble use,
Its most illustrious province, must be found
In furnishing clear guidance, a support
Not treacherous, to the mind's excursive power.
So build we up the being that we are ;
Thus deeply drinking-in the soul of things
We shall be wise perforce; and while inspired
By choice, and conscious that the will is free,
Unswerving shall we move; as if impelled
By strict necessity, along the path
Of order and of good. Whate'er we see,
Whate'er we feel, by agency direct
Or indirect shall tend to feed and nurse
Our faculties, shall fix in calmer seats
Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights
Of love divine, our intellectual soul."
Here closed the sage that eloquent harangue, Poured forth with fervour in continuous stream; Such as, remote 'mid savage wilderness,
An Indian chief discharges from his breast
Into the hearing of assembled tribes,
In open circle seated round, and hushed
As the unbreathing air, when not a leaf
Stirs in the mighty woods.-So did he speak :
The words he uttered shall not pass away;
For they sank into me-the bounteous gift
Of one whom time and nature had made wise,
Gracing his language with authority
Which hostile spirits silently allow;
Of one accustomed to desires that feed
On fruitage gathered from the tree of life;
To hopes on knowledge and experience built ;
Of one in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition; whence the soul,
Though bound to earth by ties of pity and love,
From all injurious servitude was free.
The sun, before his place of rest were reached,
Had yet to travel far, but unto us,
To us who stood low in that hollow dell,
He had become invisible,-a pomp
Leaving behind of yellow radiance spread
Upon the mountain side in contrast bold
With ample shadows, seemingly no less
Than those resplendent lights, his rich bequest,
A dispensation of his evening power.
Adown the path that from the glen had led
The funeral train, the shepherd and his mate
Were seen descending; forth to greet them ran
Our little page; the rustic pair approach;
And in the matron's aspect may be read
A plain assurance that the words which told
How that neglected pensioner was sent
Before his time into a quiet grave,
Had done to her humanity no wrong:
But we are kindly welcomed-promptly served
With ostentatious zeal.-Along the floor
Of the small cottage in the lonely dell
A grateful couch was spread for our repose,
Where, in the guise of mountaineers, we slept,
Stretched upon fragrant heath, and lulled by sound
Of far-off torrents charming the still night,
And to tired limbs and over-busy thoughts
Inviting sleep and soft forgetfulness.
Farewell to the valley-Reflections-Sight of a large and populous vale-Solitary consents to go forward-Vale described-The pastor's dwe ling, and some account of him-The churchyardChurch and monuments-The Solitary musing, and where- Roused-In the churchyard the Solitary communicates the thoughts which had recently passed through his mind-Lofty tone of the Wanderer's discourse of yesterday adverted to-Rite of baptism, and the professions
accompanying it, contrasted with the real state of human life-Inconsistency of the best men -Acknowledgment that practice falls far below the injunctions of duty as existing in the mind -General complaint of a falling-off in the value of life after the time of youth-Outward appearances of content and happiness in degree illusive-Pastor approaches-Appeal made to him-His answer-Wanderer in sympathy with him-Suggestion that the least ambitious inquirers may be most free from error-The pastor is desired to give some portraits of the living or dead from his own observation of life among these mountains-and for what purposePastor consents-Mountain cottage-Excellent qualities of its inhabitants-Solitary expresses his pleasure; but denies the praise of virtue to worth of this kind-Feelings of the priest before he enters upon his account of persons interred in the churchyard-Graves of unbaptized infants -What sensations they excite-Funeral and sepulchral observances, whence-- Ecclesiastical establishments, whence derived-Profession of belief in the doctrine of immortality.
FAREWELL, deep valley, with thy one rude house,
And its small lot of life-supporting fields,
And guardian rocks!-Farewell, attractive seat !
To the still influx of the morning light
Open, and day's pure cheerfulness, but veiled
From human observation, as if yet
Primeval forests wrapped thee round with dark
Impenetrable shade; once more farewell,
Majestic circuit, beautiful abyss,
By nature destined from the birth of things,
For quietness profound!
Of that brown slope, the outlet of the vale,
Lingering behind my comrades, thus I breathed
A parting tribute to a spot that seemed
Like the fixed centre of a troubled world.
And now, pursuing leisurely my way,
How vain, thought I, it is by change of place
To seek that comfort which the mind denies;
Yet trial and temptation oft are shunned
Wisely; and by such tenure do we hold
Frail life's possessions, that even they whose fate
Yields no peculiar reason of complaint
Might, by the promise that is here, be won
To steal from active duties, and embrace
Obscurity, and calm forgetfulness.
Knowledge, methinks, in these disordered times,
Should be allowed a privilege to have
Her anchorites, like piety of old;
Men, who, from faction sacred, and unstained
By war, might, if so minded, turn aside
Uncensured, and subsist, a scattered few
Living to God and nature, and content
With that communion. Consecrated be
The spots where such abide! But happier still
The man, whom, furthermore, a hope attends
That meditation and research may guide
His privacy to principles and powers
Discovered or invented; or set forth,
Through his acquaintance with the ways of truth,
In lucid order; so that, when his course
Is run, some faithful eulogist may say,
He sought not praise, and praise did overlook
His unobtrusive merit; but his life,
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