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 Daughter, and that late and high-prized gift, His little smiling Grandchild, were no more.
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 projects, and his inward hoard
Of unsunned griefs, too many and too keen, Was overcome by unexpected sleep,
In one blest moment. Like a shadow thrown Softly and lightly from a passing cloud, Death fell upon him, while reclined he lay For noontide 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."
And silence waited on these closing words;
Until the Wanderer (whether moved by fear Lest in those passages of life were some
That might have touched the sick heart of his Friend
Too nearly, or intent to reinforce
His own firm spirit in degree deprest
By tender sorrow for our mortal state)
Thus silence broke :-" Behold a thoughtless Man From vice and premature decay preserved By useful habits, to a fitter soil
Transplanted ere too late. The hermit, lodged Amid the untrodden desert, tells his beads, With each repeating its allotted prayer, And thus divides and thus relieves the time;
Smooth task, with his compared, whose mind could string, Not scantily, bright minutes on the thread
Of keen domestic anguish; and beguile
A solitude, unchosen, unprofessed; Till gentlest death released him.
Be the desire-too curiously to ask How much of this is but the blind result Of cordial spirits and vital temperament, And what to higher powers is justly due. But you, Sir, know that in a neighbouring vale A Priest abides before whose life such doubts Fall to the ground; whose gifts of nature lie Retired from notice, lost in attributes Of reason, honourably effaced by debts
Which her poor treasure-house is content to owe, And conquests over her dominion gained, To which her frowardness must needs submit. In this one Man is shown a temperance-proof Against all trials; industry severe
And constant as the motion of the day;
Stern self-denial round him spread, with shade That might be deemed forbidding, did not there All generous feelings flourish and rejoice; Forbearance, charity in deed and thought, And resolution competent to take Out of the bosom of simplicity
All that her holy customs recommend, And the best ages of the world prescribe. -Preaching, administering, in every work Of his sublime vocation, in the walks Of worldly intercourse between man and man, And in his humble dwelling, he appears A labourer, with moral virtue girt,
With spiritual graces, like a glory, crowned."
"Doubt can be none," the Pastor said, "for whom This portraiture is sketched. The great, the good. The well-beloved, the fortunate, the wise,These titles emperors and chiefs have borne, Honour assumed or given and him, the WONDERFUL, Our simple shepherds, speaking from the heart, Deservedly have styled.-From his abode
In a dependent chapelry, that lies
Behind yon hill, a poor and rugged wild, Which in his soul he lovingly embraced, And, having once espoused, would never quit ; Hither, ere long, that lowly, great, good Man Will be conveyed. An unelaborate stone May cover him; and by its help, perchance,
A century shall hear his name pronounced, With images attendant on the sound; Then, shall the slowly gathering twilight close In utter night; and of his course remain No cognizable vestiges, no more
Than of this breath, which shapes itself in words To speak of him, and instantly dissolves.
Noise is there not enough in doleful war, But that the heaven-born poet must stand forth, And lend the echoes of his sacred shell, To multiply and aggravate the din?
Pangs are there not enough in hopeless love- And, in requited passion, all too much Of turbulence, anxiety, and fear-
But that the minstrel of the rural shade Must tune his pipe, insidiously to nurse The perturbation in the suffering breast, And propagate its kind, far as he may? -Ah who (and with such rapture as befits The hallowed theme) will rise and celebrate The good man's purposes and deeds; retrace His struggles, his discomfitures deplore, His triumphs hail, and glorify his end Now, and for evermore? Who will do this- That virtue, like the fumes and vapoury clouds Through fancy's heat redounding in the brain, And like the soft infections of the heart,
By charm of measured words may spread o'er field, Hamlet, and town; and piety survive
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