Come on, Bertie. We shall never get to the hazelwood if we stand here much longer." And away they scampered, their boyish feet echoing through the silent house. The present happiness asserted itself, and the past grief and sadness were forgotten. But that night, when Will was nearly asleep, he was startled by Bertie standing by his bed. "Will, was my mother good, like yours, and Mr. Cowper's? Was she, Will?" "Yes, very good, I believe," Will replied sleepily. "And my real father, Will? Was he good?" "The less said about him the better," was Will's decided rejoinder, as he turned on his pillow and was soon fast asleep. The silent river flows on through the flowery meadows, rocking the water-lilies on its breast. The trees the poet loved still whisper in the night breeze, as the stars peep through the branches. Men and women come and go, and those who have spoken and acted their part in the drama of this mortal life in my story have long since passed away. In the quiet burying-ground of the Baptist Chapel John Sutcliffe lies buried, and William Wilson, the poet's barber and walking encyclopædia of news. Here, too, rest many in their nameless graves, where the long grass waves, and the silent shadows come and go. It may be that Paul Chamberlain and Drusilla Allen are sleeping there-that last long sleep which, after life's fitful fever, is welcome to the weary. The mill-wheel turns at Lavendon, and the water chimes its old music; and the daisies and buttercups make a mosaic of the turf across which Katharine sprang in her light, joyous girlhood to meet John Newton, or to greet with a loving kiss Cicely Whinfield. Like the shadows of the white clouds across the country-side, they have passed to return no more. But by the banks of the Ouse the story of life is ever repeating itself. Men of noble resolve and determination to stand out boldly as champions of the truth they hold dear, like Cuthbert Rollestone, be there, though we know them not. may, Women whose whole souls are wrapt in the service of the Lord, like Drusilla Allen, may yet sing their hymns of faith and hope, as the swift bobbins fly with a low, pleasant jingle, and the pins march onward over the pillows with such precision that they mark the hour and time. Enthusiasts like poor Paul Chamberlain, though with a zeal scarcely according to knowledge, spend themselves and are spent for Christ's sake, and looking too much to their own things, neglect perhaps the injunction to look at the things of others also, and fail to see in them beauty and grace, because they are not framed after their own notions of what is lovely and of good report. Bright and happy boys like Will, who rejoice in the love of a mother like Cicely, and tender spirits like little Bertie's, who have a protecting arm such as Cuthbert Rollestone's thrown round the child whose life he saved. Heroes, too, like him, who, with no scars from a battle-field and no medals on their breast, take up the hardest cross perhaps that a strong man can know - the cross of enforced inactivity-the spirit yet full of vigour and energy, and the body weak and comparatively feeble. Maidens, too, there may be, who, like Katharine Perry, are tempted by the siren voice of flattery, and are persuaded that a bright future lies before thema flowery vista stretching on, to end at last in the shadows of the coming night, and the wail of disappointed hope, betrayed trust, as the fruit, when grasped, turns into ashes in their hand. Mothers, too, happy and loving, yet wise mothers, like Cicely Rollestone, who, having learned the lessons of life well, can set it before their daughters by their living, breathing influence, which is the mightiest reformer and the surest guide. Wives like her, whose husbands can safely trust them. Who can tell? In these quiet untrodden paths of England many such lives as those whose story has been here told are hidden; and their joys and sorrows, their heroism and their courage, their false steps in the journey of life, are known only to God. But there is scarcely a town or village in England that has not some such life-stories enclosed in its records. The romance woven round these places which are marked as sacred in the annals of English literature may, perhaps, awaken or re-kindle some fresh interest in the pathetic story of the poet Cowper's life and works. His own words tell us, as no others when he says: can, "But with a soul that ever felt the sting Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose; Parks in which Art preceptress Nature weds, Nor gardens interspersed with flowery beds, Nor gales that catch the scent of blooming groves, Can call up life into his faded eye, That passes all he sees unheeded by ; No wounds like those a wounded spirit feels, No cure for such till God, who makes them, heals." And Cowper's wounds were healed, when, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the greatest poetess of a later time, says, with such deep pathetic power: "No type of earth can image that awaking, Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs round him breaking, Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted, THE END. BILLING & SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. |