Then, from those lulling fits of vain delight
Uproused by recollected injury, railed
At their false ways disdainfully,-and oft
In bitterness, and with a threatening eye
Of fire, incensed beneath its hoary brow.
-Those transports, with staid looks of pure
goodwill,

And with soft smile, his consort would reprove.
She, far behind him in the race of years,
Yet keeping her first mildness, was advanced
Far nearer, in the habit of her soul,
To that still region whither all are bound.
Him might we liken to the setting sun
As seen not seldom on some gusty day,
Struggling and bold, and shining from the west
With an inconstant and unmellowed light;
She was a soft attendant cloud, that hung
As if with wish to veil the restless orb;
From which it did itself imbibe a ray
Of pleasing lustre.-But no more of this;
I better love to sprinkle on the sod
That now divides the pair, or rather say,
That still unites them, praises, like heaven's
dew,

Without reserve descending upon both.

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

peace.

As by a plague. Yet no rapacious plague
Had been among them; all was gentle death,
One after one, with intervals of
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

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."

Calm of mind
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.

Far from us

DERFUL,

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:
Into its graveyard will ere long be borne
That lowly, great, good Man. A simple 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."

The Pastor, pressed by thoughts which round

his theme

Still linger'd, after a brief pause, resumed:
"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;
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
Upon the lips of men in hall or bower;
Not for reproof, but high and warm delight,
And grave encouragement, by song inspired?
Vain thought! but wherefore murmur or re-
Fine?

The memory of the just survives in heaven:
And, without sorrow, will the ground receive
That venerable clay. Meanwhile the best
Of what lies here confines us to degrees
In excellence less difficult to reach,
And milder worth: nor need we travel far
From those to whom our last regards were paid,
For such example.

Almost at the root
Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare
And slender stem, while here I sit at eve,
Oft stretches toward me, like a long straight
path

Traced faintly in the greensward: there, beneath A plain blue stone, a gentle Dalesman lies, From whom, in early childhood, was withdrawn

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
The vernal cuckoo shouted; not for him
Murmured the labouring bee. When
winds

Were working the broad bosom of the lake
Into a thousand thousand sparkling waves,
Rocking the trees, or driving cloud on cloud
Along the sharp edge of yon lofty crags,
The agitated scene before his eye
Was silent as a picture: evermore
Were all things silent, wheresoe'er he moved.
Yet, by the solace of his own pure thoughts
Upheld, he duteously pursued the round
Of rurai labours; the steep mountain-side
Ascended, with his staff and faithful dog;
The plough he guided, and the scythe he swayed;
And the ripe corn before his sickle fell
Among the jocund reapers. For himself,
All watchful and industrious as he was,
He wrought not: neither field nor flock he owned:
No wish for wealth had place within his mind;
Nor husband's love, nor father's hope or care.

Though born a younger brother, need was

none

That from the floor of his paternal home
He should depart, to plant himself anew.
And when, mature in manhood, he beheld
His parents laid in earth, no loss ensued
Of rights to him; but he remained well pleased
By the pure bond of independent love,
An inmate of a second family:

The fellow-labourer and friend of him
To whom the small inheritance had fallen.
-Nor deem that his mild presence was a weight
That pressed upon his brother's house; for
books

Were ready comrades whom he could not tire;
Of whose society the blameless Man
Was never satiate. Their familiar voice,
Even to old age, with unabated charm
Beguiled his leisure hours; refreshed his
thoughts;

Beyond its natural elevation raised
His introverted spirit; and bestowed
Upon his life an outward dignity
Which all acknowledged. The dark winter
night,

The stormy day, each had its own resource;
Song of the muses, sage historic tale,
Science severe, or word of holy Writ
Announcing immortality and joy
To the assembled spirits of just men
Made perfect, and from injury secure.

Thus soothed at home, thus busy in the field,
No languor, peevishness, nor vain complaint:
To no perverse suspicion he gave way,
And they who were about him did not fail
In reverence, or in courtesy; they prized
His gentle manners; and his peaceful smiles,
Were met with answering sympathy and love.
The gleams of his slow-varying countenance,

At length, when sixty years and five were told,

A slow disease insensibly consumed

The powers of nature and a few short steps
Of friends and kindred bore him from his home
(Yon cottage shaded by the woody crags)
To the profounder stillness of the grave.
-Nor was his funeral denied the grace
Of many tears, virtuous and thoughtful grief;
Heart-sorrow rendered sweet by gratitude.
And now that monumental stone preserves
His name, and unambitiously relates
How long, and by what kindly outward aids,
And in what pure contentedness of mind,
The sad privation was by him endured.
-And yon tall pine-tree, whose composing
sound

Was wasted on the good Man's living ear,
Hath now its own peculiar sanctity;
And, at the touch of every wandering breeze,
Murmurs, not idly, o'er his peaceful grave.

Soul-cheering Light, most bountiful of
things!

Guide of our way, mysterious comforter! Whose sacred influence, spread through earth and heaven,

We all too thanklessly participate,
Thy gifts were utterly withheld from him
Whose place of rest is near yon ivied porch.
Yet, of the wild brooks ask if he complained;
Ask of the channelled rivers if they held
A safer, easier, more determined course.
What terror doth it strike into the mind
To think of one, blind and alone, advancing
Straight toward some precipice's airy brink!
But, timely warned, He would have stayed his

steps,

Protected, say enlightened, by his ear;
And on the very edge of vacancy

Not more endangered than a man whose eye
Beholds the gulf beneath.-No floweret blooms
Throughout the lofty range of these rough hills,
Nor in the woods, that could from him conceal
Its birth-place; none whose figure did not live
Upon his touch. The bowels of the earth
Enriched with knowledge his industrious mind;
The ocean paid him tribute from the stores
Lodged in her bosom; and, by science led,
His genius mounted to the plains of heaven.
-Methinks I see him-how his eye-balls rolled,
Beneath his ample brow, in darkness paired,-
But each instinct with spirit; and the frame
Of the whole countenance alive with thought,
Fancy, and understanding; while the voice
Discoursed of natural or moral truth
With eloquence, and such authentic power
That, in his presence, humbler knowledge stood
Abashed, and tender pity overawed."

"A noble- and, to unreflecting minds,
A marvellous spectacle," the Wanderer said,
"Beings like these present! But proof abounds
Upon the earth that faculties, which seem
Extinguished, do not, therefore, cease to be.
And to the mind among her powers of sense
This transfer is permitted, -not alone
That the bereft their recompense may win;
But for remoter purposes of love
And charity; nor last nor least for this,
That to the imagination may be given
A type and shadow of an awful truth;
How, likewise, under sufferance divine,
Darkness is banished from the realms of death,
By man's imperishable spirit, quelled.

The waste of death; and lo! the giant oak Stretched on his bier-that massy timber wain ; Nor fail to note the Man who guides the team."

He was a peasant of the lowest class: Grey locks profusely round his temples hung In clustering curls, like ivy, which the bite' Of winter cannot thin; the fresh air lodged Within his cheek, as light within a cloud; And he returned our greeting with a smile. When he had passed, the Solitary spake; "A Man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident to-morrows; with a face Not worldly-minded, for it bears too much Of Nature's impress,-gaiety and health, Freedom and hope; but keen, withal, and

The Pastor answered. "You have read him well.

Year after year is added to his store
With silent increase: summers, winters-past.
Past or to come; yea, boldly might I say,
Ten summers and ten winters of a space
That lies beyond life's ordinary bounds
Upon his sprightly vigour cannot fix
The obligation of an anxious mind,
A pride in having, or a fear to lose;
Possessed like outskirts of some large domain,
By any one more thought of than by him
Who holds the land in fee, its careless lord!
Yet is the creature rational, endowed
With foresight; hears, too, every sabbath day,
The christian promise with attentive ear;
Nor will, I trust, the Majesty of Heaven
Reject the incense offered up by him,
Though of the kind which beasts and birds
present

In grove or pasture; cheerfulness of soul,
From trepidation and repining free.
How many scrupulous worshippers fall down
Upon their knees, and daily homage pay
Less worthy, less religious even, than his !

This qualified respect, the old Man's due,
Is paid without reluctance; but in truth,"
(Said the good Vicar with a fond half-smile)
"I feel at times a motion of despite

The Mountain-ash

No eye can overlook, when 'mid a grove
Of yet unfaded trees she lifts her head
Decked with autumnal berries, that outshine
Spring's richest blossoms; and ye may have
marked,

By a brook-side or solitary tarn,

How she her station doth adorn: the pool
Glows at her feet, and all the gloomy rocks
Are brightened round her. In his native vale
Such and so glorious did this Youth appear;
A sight that kindled pleasure in all hearts
By his ingenuous beauty, by the gleam
Of his fair eyes, by his capacious brow,
By all the graces with which nature's hand
Had lavishly arrayed him. As old bards
Tell in their idle songs of wandering gods,
Pan or Apollo, veiled in human form:
Yet, like the sweet-breathed violet of the shade
Discovered in their own despite to sense
Of mortals (if such fables without blame
May find chance-mention on this sacred ground)
So, through a simple rustic garb's disguise,
And through the impediment of rural cares,
In him revealed a scholar's genius shone;
And so, not wholly hidden from men's sight,
In him the spirit of a hero walked

Our unpretending valley.-How the quoit
Whizzed from the stripling's arm! If touched

by him,

The inglorious foot-ball mounted to the pitch
Of the lark's flight,- -or shaped a rainbow curve,
Aloft, in prospect of the shouting field!
The indefatigable fox had learned
To dread his perseverance in the chase.
With admiration would he lift his eyes
To the wide-ruling eagle, and his hand
Was loth to assault the majesty he loved:
Else had the strongest fastnesses proved weak
To guard the royal brood. The sailing glead,
The wheeling swallow, and the darting snipe,
The sportive sea-gull dancing with the waves,
And cautious water-fowl, from distant climes,
Fixed at their seat, the centre of the Mere,
Were subject to young Oswald's steady aim,
And lived by his forbearance.

From the coast

Of France a boastful Tyrant hurled his threats;
Our Country marked the preparation vast
Of hostile forces; and she called with voice
That filled her plains, that reached her utmost
shores,

And in remotest vales was heard-to arms!
-Then, for the first time, here you might have

seen

The shepherd's grey to martial scarlet changed, That flashed uncouthly through the woods and fields.

Ten hardy Striplings, all in bright attire, And graced with shining weapons, weekly marched,

From this lone valley, to a central spot Where, in assemblage with the flower and choice

Of the surrounding district, they might learn The rudiments of war: ten-hardy, strong, And valiant; but young Oswald, like a chief And yet a modest comrade, led them forth From their shy solitude, to face the world, With a gay confidence and seemly pride: Measuring the soil beneath their happy feet

brow,

Was a true patriot, hopeful as the best
Of that young peasantry, who, in our days,
Have fought and perished for Helvetia's rights-
Ah, not in vain!--or those who, in old time,
For work of happier issue, to the side

Of Tell came trooping from a thousand huts,
When he had risen alone! No braver Youth
Descended from Judean heights, to march
With righteous Joshua; nor appeared in arms
When grove was felled, and altar was cast down,
And Gideon blew the trumpet, soul-inflamed,
And strong in hatred of idolatry."

The Pastor, even as if by these last words Raised from his seat within the chosen shade, Moved toward the grave;-instinctively his steps

We followed; and my voice with joy exclaimed: "Power to the Oppressors of the world is given, A might of which they dream not. Oh! the

curse,

To be the awakener of divinest thoughts,
Father and founder of exalted deeds;

And, to whole nations bound in servile straits,
The liberal donor of capacities

More than heroic! this to be, nor yet
Have sense of one connatural wish, nor yet
Deserve the least return of human thanks;
Winning no recompense but deadly hate
With pity mixed, astonishment with scorn!"

When this involuntary strain had ceased. The Pastor said: "So Providence is served; The forked weapon of the skies can send Illumination into deep, dark holds.