O blest are the Hearers, and proud be the Hand Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a Band; I am glad for him, blind as he is! -all the while If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile. That tall Man, a Giant in bulk and in height, There's a Cripple who leans on his Crutch; like a Tower That long has leaned forward, leans hour after A Mother, whose Spirit in fetters is bound, While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound. Now, Coaches and Chariots! roar on like a stream; Here are twenty souls happy as Souls in a dream : They are deaf to your murmurs they care not for you, Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue! XVII. STEPPING WESTWARD. While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sun-set, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What you are stepping westward." "WHAT If you are stepping westward?” "Yea." 'Twould be a wildish destiny, we, who thus together roam In a strange Land, and far from home, The dewy ground was dark and cold; And stepping westward seemed to be I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound The voice was soft, and she who spake The very sound of courtesy: Its power was felt; and while my eye Was fixed upon the glowing sky, XVIII. GLEN-ALMAIN, OR THE NARROW GLEN. In this still place, remote from men, And should, methinks, when all was past, Have rightfully been laid at last Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent As by a spirit turbulent; Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild, And every thing unreconciled; In some complaining, dim retreat, For fear and melancholy meet; A more entire tranquillity. Does then the Bard sleep here indeed? Or is it but a groundless creed ? What matters it? I blame them not Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot Was moved; and in this way expressed Their notion of its perfect rest. A Convent, even a hermit's Cell Would break the silence of this Dell : It is not quiet, is not ease; But something deeper far than these : Is of the grave; and of austere |