The mild assemblage of the starry heavens;
And the great sun, earth's universal lord!

How bountiful is Nature! he shall find Who seeks not; and to him who hath not asked

Large measure shall be dealt. Three sabbath

days

Are scarcely told, since, on a service bent
Of mere humanity, you clomb those heights;
And what a marvellous and heavenly show
Was suddenly revealed 1-the swains moved on,
And heeded not: you lingered, you perceived
And felt, deeply as living man could feel.
There is a luxury in self-dispraise;
And inward self-disparagement affords
To meditative spleen a grateful feast.
Trust me, pronouncing on your own desert,
You judge unthankfully distempered nerves
Infect the thoughts: the languor of the frame
Depresses the soul's vigour. Quit your couch-
Cleave not so fondly to your moody cell:
Nor let the hallowed powers, that shed from

heaven

:

Stillness and rest, with disapproving eye
Look down upon your taper, through a watch
Of midnight hours, unseasonably twinkling
In this deep Hollow, like a sullen star
Dimly reflected in a lonely pool.
Take courage, and withdraw yourself from ways
That run not parallel to nature's course.
Rise with the lark! your matins shall obtain
Grace, be their composition what it may,
If but with hers performed; climb once again,
Climb every day, those ramparts; meet the
breeze

Upon their tops, adventurous as a bee
That from your garden thither soars, to feed
On new-blown heath; let yon commanding rock
Be your frequented watch-tower; roll the stone
In thunder down the mountains; with all your
might

Chase the wild goat; and if the bold red deer Fly to those harbours, driven by hound and horn

Loud echoing, add your speed to the pursuit ;
So, wearied to your hut shall you return,
And sink at evening into sound repose.'

The Solitary lifted toward the hills
A kindling eye :-accordant feelings rushed
Into my bosom, whence these words broke
forth:

"Oh! what a joy it were, in vigorous health,
To have a body (this our vital frame
With shrinking sensibility endued,

And all the nice regards of flesh and blood)
And to the elements surrender it
As if it were a spirit !-How divine,
The liberty, for frail, for mortal, man
To roam at large among unpeopled glens
And mountainous retirements, only trod
By devious footsteps; regions consecrate
To oldest time! and, reckless of the storm
That keeps the raven quiet in her nest,
Be as a presence or a motion-one
Among the many there; and while the mists
Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes
And phantoms from the crags and solid earth
As fast as a musician scatters sounds
Out of an instrument; and while the streams
(As at a first creation and in haste

To exercise their untried faculties)
Descending from the region of the clouds,
And starting from the hollows of the earth
More multitudinous every moment, rend
Their way before them-what a joy to roam
And haply sometimes with articulate voice,
An equal among mightiest energies;
Amid the deafening tumult, scarcely heard
By him that utters it, exclaim aloud,
'Rage on ye elements! let moon and stars
Their aspects lend, and mingle in their turn
With this commotion (ruinous though it be)
From day to night, from night to day, pro-
longed!'

"Yes," said the Wanderer, taking from my lips

The strain of transport, "whosoe'er in youth
Has, through ambition of his soul, given way
To such desires, and grasped at such delight,
Shall feel congenial stirrings late and long,
In spite of all the weakness that life brings,
Its cares and sorrows; he, though taught to

own

The tranquillizing power of time, shall wake,
Wake sometimes to a noble restlessness-
Loving the sports which once he gloried in.

Compatriot, Friend, remote are Garry's hills,
The streams far distant of your native glen;
Yet is their form and image here expressed
With brotherly resemblance. Turn your steps
Wherever fancy leads; by day, by night,
Are various engines working, not the same
As those with which your soul in youth was
moved,

But by the great Artificer endowed
With no inferior power. You dwell alone;
You walk, you live, you speculate alone;
Yet doth remembrance, like a sovereign prince,
For you a stately gallery maintain
Of gay or tragic pictures. You have seen,
Have acted, suffered, travelled far, observed
With no incurious eye; and books are yours,
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies
Preserved from age to age; more precious far
Than that accumulated store of gold
And orient gems, which, for a day of need,
The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs.
These hoards of truth you can unlock at will:
And music waits upon your skilful touch,
Sounds which the wandering shepherd from
these heights
Hears, and forgets his purpose ;-
thus,
How can you droop, if willing to be upraised?
A piteous lot it were to flee from Man-
Yet not rejoice in Nature. He, whose hours
Are by domestic pleasures uncaressed
And unenlivened; who exists whole years
Apart from benefits received or done
'Mid the transactions of the bustling crowd;
Who neither hears, nor feels a wish to hear
Of the world's interests-such a one hath need
Of a quick fancy, and an active heart,
That, for the day's consumption, books may

yield

furnished

Food not unwholesome: earth and air correct
His morbid humour, with delight supplied
Or solace, varying, as the seasons change
-Truth has her pleasure-grounds, her haunts
of ease

And easy contemplation; gay parterres,
And labyrinthine walks, her sunny glades
And shady groves in studied contrast-each,
For recreation, leading into each :
These may he range, if willing to partake
Their soft indulgences, and in due time
May issue thence, recruited for the tasks
And course of service Truth requires from those
Who tend her altars, wait upon her throne,
And guard her fortresses. Who thinks, and
feels,

And recognises ever and anon

The breeze of nature stirring in his soul,
Why need such man go desperately astray,
And nurse the dreadful appetite of death?'
If tired with systems, each in its degree
Substantial, and all crumbling in their turn,
Let him build systems of his own, and smile
At the fond work, demolished with a touch;
If unreligious, let him be at once
Among ten thousand innocents, enrolled
A pupil in the many-chambered school
Where superstition weaves her airy dreams.

Life's autumn past, I stand on winter's verge;
And daily lose what I desire to keep:
Yet rather would I instantly decline
To the traditionary sympathies

Of a most rustic ignorance, and take
A fearful apprehension from the owl
Or death-watch and as readily rejoice,
If two auspicious magpies crossed my way;—
To this would rather bend than see and hear
The repetitions wearisome of sense,
Where soul is dead, and feeling hath no place;
Where knowledge, ill begun in cold remark
On outward things, with formal inference ends;
Or, if the mind turn inward, she recoils
At once-or, not recoiling, is perplexed-
Lost in a gloom of uninspired research;
Meanwhile, the heart within the heart, the seat
Where peace and happy consciousness should

dwell,

Single and one, the omnipresent God,
By vocal utterance, or blaze of light,
Or cloud of darkness, localised in heaven;
On earth, enshrined within the wandering ark ;
Or, out of Sion, thundering from his throne
Between the Cherubim-on the chosen Race
Showered miracles, and ceased not to dispense
Judgments, that filled the land from age to age
With hope, and love, and gratitude, and fear;
And with amazement smote-thereby to assert
His scorned, or unacknowledged, sovereignty.
And when the One, ineffable of name,
Of nature indivisible, withdrew
From mortal adoration or regard,
Not then was Deity engulfed nor Man,
The rational creature, left to feel the weight
Of his own reason, without sense or thought
Of higher reason and a purer will,

To benefit and bless, through mightier power-
Whether the Persian-zealous to reject
Altar and image, and the inclusive walls
And roofs of temples built by human hands-
To loftiest heights ascending, from their tops,
Presented sacrifice to moon and stars,
With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow,
And to the winds and mother elements,
And the whole circle of the heavens, for him
A sensitive existence, and a God,
With lifted hands invoked, and songs of praise:
Or, less reluctantly to bonds of sense
Yielding his soul, the Babylonian framed
For influence undefined a personal shape;
And, from the plain, with toil immense, up-
reared

Tower eight times planted on the top of tower,
Descending, there might rest; upon that height
That Belus, nightly to his splendid couch
Pure and serene, diffused-to overlook
Winding Euphrates, and the city vast
With grove and field and garden interspersed:
Of his devoted worshippers, far-stretched,
Their town, and foodful region for support
Against the pressure of beleaguering war.

Chaldean Shepherds, ranging trackless fields,
Beneath the concave of unclouded skies
Spread like a sea, in boundless solitude,
Looked on the polar star, as on a guide
And guardian of their course, that never closed
His stedfast eye.
With a submissive reverence they beheld;
The planetary Five
Watched, from the centre of their sleeping
flocks,

Carrying through ether, in perpetual round,
Those radiant Mercuries, that seemed to move

Decrees and resolutions of the Gods;
And, by their aspects, signifying works
Of dim futurity, to Man revealed.
Of observations natural; and, thus
-The imaginative faculty was lord
Led on, those shepherds made report of stars
In set rotation passing to and fro,
Between the orbs of our apparent sphere
And its invisible counterpart, adorned
With answering constellations, under earth,
Removed from all approach of living sight
But present to the dead; who, so they deemed,
Like those celestial messengers beheld

All accidents, and judges were of all.

The lively Grecian, in a land of hills,

Under a cope of sky more variable,
Could find commodious place for every God,
Promptly received, as prodigally brought,
From the surrounding countries, at the choice
Of all adventurers. With unrivalled skill,
As nicest observation furnished hints

For studious fancy, his quick hand bestowed
On fluent operations a fixed shape;
Metal or stone, idolatrously served.

And yet triumphant o'er this pompous show
Of art, this palpable array of sense,
On every side encountered; in despite
Of the gross fictions chanted in the streets
By wandering Rhapsodists; and in contempt
Of doubt and bold denial hourly urged
Amid the wrangling schools-a SPIRIT hung,
Beautiful region! o'er thy towns and farms,
Statues and temples, and memorial tombs;
And emanations were perceived; and acts
Of immortality, in Nature's course,
Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt
As bonds, on grave philosopher imposed
And armed warrior; and in every grove
A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed,
When piety more awful had relaxed.
-Take, running river, take these locks of
mine

Thus would the Votary say-'this severed hair,

My vow fulfilling, do I here present,
Thankful for my beloved child's return.
Thy banks, Cephisus, he again hath trod,
Thy murmurs heard; and drunk the crystal
lymph

With which thou dost refresh the thirsty lip,
And, all day long, moisten these flowery fields!'
And doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was

shed

Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose
Of Life continuous, Being unimpaired;
That hath been, is, and where it was and is
There shall endure,-existence unexposed
To the blind walk of mortal accident;
From diminution safe and weakening age;
While man grows old, and dwindles, and decays;
And countless generations of mankind
Depart; and leave no vestige where they trod.

We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love; And, even as these are well and wisely fixed, In dignity of being we ascend.

But what is error?"-" Answer he who can !" The Sceptic somewhat haughtily exclaimed:

Love, Hope, and Admiration are they not Mad Fancy's favourite vassals? Does not life Use them, full oft, as pioneers to ruin, Guides to destruction? Is it well to trust Imagination's light when reason's fails, The unguarded taper where the guarded faints? -Stoop from those heights, and soberly declare What error is; and, of our errors, which Doth most debase the mind; the genuine seats Of power, where are they? Who shall regulate, With truth, the scale of intellectual rank?"

Methinks," persuasively the Sage replied, "That for this arduous office you possess Some rare advantages. Your early days A grateful recollection must supply

Of much exalted good by Heaven vouchsafed To dignify the humblest state.-Your voice

Hath, in my hearing, often testified
That poor men's children, they, and they alone,
By their condition taught, can understand
The wisdom of the prayer that daily asks
For daily bread. A consciousness is yours
How feelingly religion may be learned
In smoky cabins, from a mother's tongue-
Heard while the dwelling vibrates to the din
Of the contiguous torrent, gathering strength
At every moment-and, with strength, increase
Of fury; or, while snow is at the door,
Assaulting and defending, and the wind,
A sightless labourer, whistles at his work-
Fearful; but resignation tempers fear,
And piety is sweet to infant minds.
-The Shepherd-lad, that in the sunshine

carves,

On the green turf, a dial-to divide
The silent hours; and who to that report
Can portion out his pleasures, and adapt,
Throughout a long and lonely summer's day
His round of pastoral duties, is not left
With less intelligence for moral things
Of gravest import. Early he perceives,
Within himself, a measure and a rule,
Which to the sun of truth he can apply,
That shines for him, and shines for all mankind.
Experience daily fixing his regards

On nature's wants, he knows how few they are,
And where they lie, how answered and ap-

peased.

This knowledge ample recompense affords
For manifold privations; he refers

His notions to this standard; on this rock
Rests his desires; and hence, in after life,
Soul-strengthening patience, and sublime

content.

Imagination-not permitted here

To waste her powers, as in the worldling's mind,
On fickle pleasures, and superfluous cares,
And trivial ostentation-is left free
And puissant to range the solemn walks
Of time and nature, girded by a zone
That, while it binds, invigorates and supports.
Acknowledge, then, that whether by the side
Of his poor hut, or on the mountain top,
Or in the cultured field, a Man so bred
(Take from him what you will upon the score
Of ignorance or illusion) lives and breathes
For noble purposes of mind: his heart
Beats to the heroic song of ancient days;
His eye distinguishes, his soul creates.
And those illusions, which excite the scorn
Or move the pity of unthinking minds,
Are they not mainly outward ministers
Of inward conscience? with whose service
charged

They came and go, appeared and disappear,
Diverting evil purposes, remorse
Awakening, chastening an intemperate grief,
Or pride of heart abating: and, whene'er
For less important ends those phantoms move,
Who would forbid them, if their presence serve,
On thinly-peopled mountains and wild heaths,
Filling a space. else vacant, to exalt
The forms of Nature, and enlarge her powers?

Once more to distant ages of the world
Let us revert, and place before our thoughts
The face which rural solitude might wear
To the unenlightened swains of pagan Greece.

-In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched

On the soft grass through half a summer's day,
With music lulled his indolent repose:
And, in some fit of weariness, if he
When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear
A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds
Which his poor skill could make, his fancy
fetched,

Even from the blazing chariot of the sun,

A beardless Youth, who touched a golden lute, And filled the illumined groves with ravishment. The nightly hunter, lifting a bright eye

Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart

Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed That timely light, to share his joyous sport: And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs,

Across the lawn and through the darksome grove,

Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes
By echo multiplied from rock or cave,
Swept in the storm of chase; as moon and stars
Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven,
When winds are blowing strong. The travel-

ler slaked

grotesque,

Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth
In the low vale, or on steep mountain side;
And, sometimes, intermixed with stirring horns
Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard,-
These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood
Of gamesome Deities; or Pan himself,
The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring God!"

The strain was aptly chosen; and I could mark

Its kindly influence, o'er the yielding brow
Of our Companion, gradually diffused;
While, listening, he had paced the noiseless turf,
Like one whose untired ear a murmuring stream
Detains; but tempted now to interpose,
He with a smile exclaimed :-

''Tis well you speak At a safe distance from our native land, And from the mansions where our youth was taught.

The true descendants of those godly men
Who swept from Scotland, in a flame of zeal,
Shrine, altar, image, and the massy piles
That harboured them, the souls retaining yet
The churlish features of that after-race
Who fled to woods, caverns, and jutting rocks,
In deadly scorn of superstitious rites,

Or what their scruples construed to be such-
How, think you, would they tolerate this

scheme

Of fine propensities, that tends, if urged

Far as it might be urged, to sow afresh
The weeds of Romish phantasy, in vain
Uprooted; would re-consecrate our wells
To good Saint Fillan and to fair Saint Anne;
And from long bai shment recal Saint Giles,
To watch again with tutelary love
O'er stately Edinborough throned on crags?
A blessed restoration, to behold
The patron, on the shoulders of his priests,
Once more parading through her crowded

streets

Now simply guarded by the sober powers
Of science, and philosophy, and sense!"

This answer followed.-"You have turned my thoughts

Upon our brave Progenitors, who rose
And shrunk from vain observances, to lurk
Against idolatry with warlike mind,
In woods, and dwell under impending rocks
Ill-sheltered, and oft wanting fire and food;
Why?-for his very reason that they felt,
And did acknowledge, wheresoe'er they moved,
A spiritual presence, oft-times misconceived,
But still a high dependence, a divine
Bounty and government, that filled their hearts
With joy, and gratitude, and fear, and love;
And from their fervent lips drew hymns of
praise,

That through the desert rang. Though favoured less,

Far less, than these, yet such, in their degree,
Were those bewildered Pagans of old time.
Beyond their own poor natures and above
They looked; were humbly thankful for the
Which the warm sun solicited, and earth
good
Bestowed; were gladsome,—and their moral

sense

They fortified with reverence for the Gods; And they had hopes that overstepped the Grave.

Now, shall our great Discoverers," he exclaimed,

Raising his voice triumphantly, "obtain
From sense and reason less than these obtained,
Though far misled? Shall men for whom our

age

Unbaffled powers of vision hath prepared,
To explore the world without and world within,
Be joyless as the blind? Ambitious spirits-
Whom earth, at this late season, hath produced
To regulate the moving spheres, and weigh
The planets in the hollow of their hand;
And they who rather dive than soar, whose pains
Have solved the elements, or analysed
The thinking principle-shall they in fact
Prove a degraded Race? and what avails
Renown, if their presumption make them such?
Oh! there is laughter at their work in heaven!
Inquire of ancient Wisdom; go, demand
Of mighty Nature, if 'twas ever meant
That we should pry far off yet be unraised;
That we should pore, and dwindle as we pore,
Viewing all objects unremittingly
In disconnection dead and spiritless;
And still dividing, and dividing still,
Break down all grandeur, still unsatisfied
With the perverse attempt, while littleness
May yet become more little; waging thus
An impious warfare with the very life
Of our own souls!

And if indeed there be
An all-pervading Spirit, upon whom
Our dark foundations rest, could he design
That this magnificent effect of power,
The earth we tread, the sky that we behold
By day, and all the pomp which night reveals;
That these and that superior mystery
Our vital frame, so fearfully devised,
And the dread soul within it-should exist
Only to be examined, pondered, searched,
Probed, vexed, and criticised?-Accuse me not
Of arrogance, unknown Wanderer as I am,
If, having walked with Nature threescore years,
And offered, far as frailty would allow,
My heart a daily sacrifice to Truth,
I now affirm of Nature and of Truth,
Whom I have served, that their DIVINITY
Revolts, offended at the ways of men
Swayed by such motives, to such ends em-
ployed;

Philosophers, who, though the human soul
Be of a thousand faculties composed,
And twice ten thousand interests, do yet prize
This soul, and the transcendent universe,
No more than as a mirror that reflects
To proud Self-love her own intelligence;
That one, poor, finite object, in the abyss
Of infinite Being, twinkling restlessly!

Nor higher place can be assigned to him And his compeers-the laughing Sage of France.

Crowned was he, if my memory do not err,
With laurel planted upon hoary hairs,
In sign of conquest by his wit achieved
And benefits his wisdom had conferred;

That neither she nor Silence lack the power
To avenge their own insulted majesty.

O blest seclusion! when the mind admits
The law of duty; and can therefore move
Through each vicissitude of loss and gain,
Linked in entire complacence with her choice:
When youth's presumptuousness is mellowed
down,

And manhood's vain anxiety dismissed;
When wisdom shows her seasonable fruit,
Upon the boughs of sheltering leisure hung
In sober plenty: when the spirit stoops
To drink with gratitude the crystal stream
Of unreproved enjoyment; and is pleased
To muse, and be saluted by the air
Of meek repentance, wafting wall-flower scents
From out the crumbling ruins of fallen pride
And chambers of transgression, now forlorn.
O, calm contented days, and peaceful nights!
Who, when such good can be obtained, would
strive

To reconcile his manhood to a couch

Soft, as may seem, but, under that disguise,
Stuffed with the thorny substance of the past
For fixed annoyance; and full oft beset
With floating dreams, black and disconsolate,
The vapoury phantoms of futurity?

Within the soul a faculty abides,
That with interpositions, which would hide
And darken, so can deal that they become
Contingencies of pomp ; and serve to exalt
Her native brightness. As the ample moon,
In the deep stillness of a summer even
Rising behind a thick and lofty grove,
Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light,

flowers

Opprest, far less becoming ornaments
Than Spring oft twines about a mouldering tree;
Yet so it pleased a fond, a vain, old Man,
And a most frivolous people. Him I mean
Who penned, to ridicule confiding faith,
This sorry Legend; which by chance we found
Piled in a nook, through malice, as might seem,
Among more innocent rubbish."- Speaking

thus,

With a brief notice when, and how, and where,
We had espied the book, he drew it forth;
And courteously, as if the act removed,
At once, all traces from the good Man's heart
Of unbenign aversion or contempt,
Restored it to its owner. 66 Gentle Friend,"
Herewith he grasped the Solitary's hand,
"You have known lights and guides better than
these.

Ah! let not aught amiss within dispose
A noble mind to practise on herself,
And tempt opinion to support the wrongs
Of passion: whatsoe'er be felt or feared,
From higher judgment-seats make no appeal
To lower can you question that the soul
Inherits an allegiance, not by choice
To be cast off, upon an oath proposed
By each new upstart notion? In the ports
Of levity no refuge can be found,
No shelter, for a spirit in distress.
He who by wilful disesteem of life
And proud insensibility to hope,
Affronts the eye of Solitude, shall learn
That her mild nature can be terrible;

Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil
Into a substance glorious as her own,
Yea, with her own incorporated, by power
Capacious and serene:-Like power abides
In man's celestial spirit; virtue thus
Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds
A calm, a beautiful, and silent fire,
From the encumbrances of mortal life,
From error, disappointment-nay, from guilt;
And sometimes, so relenting justice wills,
From palpable oppressions of despair."

The Solitary by these words was touched With manifest emotion, and exclaimed ; "But how begin? and whence ?— The Mind is free

Resolve,' the haughty Moralist would say,
'This single act is all that we demand.'
Alas! such wisdom bids a creature fly
Whose very sorrow is, that time hath shorn
His natural wings -To friendship let him turn
For succour; but perhaps he sits alone
On stormy waters, tossed in a little boat
That holds but him, and can contain no more!
Religion tells of amity sublime

Which no condition can preclude; of One
Who sees all suffering, comprehends all wants,
All weakness fathoms, can supply all needs:
But is that bounty absolute ?-His gifts,
Are they not, still, in some degree, rewards
For acts of service? Can his love extend
To hearts that own not him? Will showers of