THE EXCURSION

Something must now be said of this poem, but chiefly, as has been done through the whole of these notes, with reference to my personal friends, and especially to her who has perseveringly taken them down from my dictation. Towards the close of the first book stand the lines that were first written, beginning, "Nine tedious years," and ending, "Last human tenant of these ruined walls." These were composed in '95 at Racedown; and for several passages describing the employment and demeanour of Margaret during her affliction, I was indebted to observations made in Dorsetshire, and afterwards at Alfoxden in Somersetshire, where I resided in '97 and '98. The lines towards the conclusion of the fourth book--beginning, "For, the man, who, in this spirit," to the words "intellectual soul"--were in order of time composed the next, either at Racedown or Alfoxden, I do not remember which. The rest of the poem was written in the vale of Grasmere, chiefly during our residence at Allan Bank. The long poem on my own education was, together with many minor poems, composed while we lived at the cottage at Town-end. Perhaps my purpose of giving an additional interest to these my poems in the eyes of my nearest and dearest friends may be promoted by saying a few words upon the character of the Wanderer, the Solitary, and the Pastor, and some other of the persons introduced. And first, of the principal one, the Wanderer. My lamented friend Southey (for this is written a month after his decease) used to say that had he been born a papist, the course of life which would in all probability have been his was the one for which he was most fitted and most to his mind,--that of a Benedictine monk in a convent, furnished, as many once were and some still are, with an inexhaustible library. 'Books', as appears from many passages in his writings, and as was evident to those who had opportunities of observing his daily life, were in fact 'his passion'; and 'wandering', I can with truth affirm, was 'mine'; but this propensity in me was happily counteracted by inability from want of fortune to fulfil my wishes. But, had I been born in a class which would have deprived me of what is called a liberal education, it is not unlikely that, being strong in body, I should have taken to a way of life such as that in which my Pedlar passed the greater part of his days. At all events, I am here called upon freely to acknowledge that the character I have represented in his person is chiefly an idea of what I fancied my own character might have become in his circumstances. Nevertheless, much of what he says and does had an external existence that fell under my own youthful and subsequent observation. An individual named Patrick, by birth and education a Scotchman, followed this humble occupation for many years, and afterwards settled in the town of Kendal. He married a kinswoman of my wife's, and her sister Sarah was brought up from her ninth year under this good man's roof. My own imaginations I was happy to find clothed in reality, and fresh ones suggested, by what she reported of this man's tenderness of heart, his strong and pure imagination, and his solid attainments in literature, chiefly religious whether in prose or verse. At Hawkshead also, while I was a schoolboy, there occasionally resided a Packman (the name then generally given to persons of this calling) with whom I had frequent conversations upon what had befallen him, and what he had observed, during his wandering life; and, as was natural, we took much to each other: and, upon the subject of "Pedlarism" in general, as 'then' followed, and its favourableness to an intimate knowledge of human concerns, not merely among the humbler classes of society, I need say nothing here in addition to what is to be found in the "Excursion," and a note attached to it. Now for the Solitary. Of him I have much less to say. Not long after we took up our abode at Grasmere, came to reside there, from what motive I either never knew or have forgotten, a Scotchman a little past the middle of life, who had for many years been chaplain to a Highland regiment. He was in no respect as far as I know, an interesting character, though in his appearance there was a good deal that attracted attention, as if he had been shattered in fortune and not happy in mind. Of his quondam position I availed myself, to connect with the Wanderer, also a Scotchman, a character suitable to my purpose, the elements of which I drew from several persons with whom I had been connected, and who fell under my observation during frequent residences in London at the beginning of the French Revolution. The chief of these was, one may 'now' say, a Mr. Fawcett, a preacher at a dissenting meeting-house at the Old Jewry. It happened to me several times to be one of his congregation through my connection with Mr. Nicholson of Cateaton Street, who at that time, when I had not many acquaintances in London, used often to invite me to dine with him on Sundays; and I took that opportunity (Mr. N. being a dissenter) of going to hear Fawcett, who was an able and eloquent man. He published a poem on war, which had a good deal of merit, and made me think more about him than I should otherwise have done. But his Christianity was probably never very deeply rooted; and, like many others in those times of like showy talents, he had not strength of character to withstand the effects of the French Revolution, and of the wild and lax opinions which had done so much towards producing it, and far more in carrying it forward in its extremes. Poor Fawcett, I have been told, became pretty much such a person as I have described; and early disappeared from the stage, having fallen into habits of intemperance, which I have heard (though I will not answer for the fact) hastened his death. Of him I need say no more: there were many like him at that time, which the world will never be without, but which were more numerous then for reasons too obvious to be dwelt upon.

To what is said of the Pastor in the poem I have little to add, but what may be deemed superfluous. It has ever appeared to me highly favourable to the beneficial influence of the Church of England upon all gradations and classes of society, that the patronage of its benefices is in numerous instances attached to the estates of noble families of ancient gentry; and accordingly I am gratified by the opportunity afforded me in the "Excursion," to pourtray the character of a country clergyman of more than ordinary talents, born and bred in the upper ranks of society so as to partake of their refinements, and at the same time brought by his pastoral office and his love of rural life into intimate connection with the peasantry of his native district. To illustrate the relation which in my mind this Pastor bore to the Wanderer, and the resemblance between them, or rather the points of community in their nature, I likened one to an oak and the other to a sycamore; and, having here referred to this comparison, I need only add, I had no one individual in my mind, wishing rather to embody this idea than to break in upon the simplicity of it, by traits of individual character or of any peculiarity of opinion.

And now for a few words upon the scene where these interviews and conversations are supposed to occur. The scene of the first book of the poem is, I must own, laid in a tract of country not sufficiently near to that which soon comes into view in the second book, to agree with the fact. All that relates to Margaret and the ruined cottage, etc., was taken from observations made in the south-west of England, and certainly it would require more than seven-league boots to stretch in one morning from a common in Somersetshire or Dorsetshire to the heights of Furness Fells and the deep valleys they embosom. For thus dealing with space I need make, I trust, no apology, but my friends may be amused by the truth. In the poem, I suppose that the Pedlar and I ascended from a plain country up the vale of Langdale, and struck off a good way above the chapel to the western side of the vale. We ascended the hill and thence looked down upon the circular recess in which lies Blea-Tarn, chosen by the Solitary for his retreat. After we quit his cottage, passing over a low ridge we descend into another vale, that of Little Langdale, towards the head of which stands, embowered or partly shaded by yews and other trees, something between a cottage and a mansion or gentleman's house such as they once were in this country. This I convert into the Parsonage, and at the same time, and as by the waving of a magic wand, I turn the comparatively confined vale of Langdale, its Tarn, and the rude chapel which once adorned the valley, into the stately and comparatively spacious vale of Grasmere, its Lake, and its ancient Parish Church; and upon the side of Loughrigg Fell, at the foot of the Lake, and looking down upon it and the whole vale and its encompassing mountains, the Pastor is supposed by me to stand, when at sunset he addresses his companions in words which I hope my readers will remember, or I should not have taken the trouble of giving so much in detail the materials on which my mind actually worked. Now for a few particulars of 'fact' respecting the persons whose stories are told or characters are described by the different speakers. To Margaret I have already alluded. I will add here, that the lines beginning, "She was a woman of a steady mind," faithfully delineate, as far as they go, the character possessed in common by many women whom it has been my happiness to know in humble life; and that several of the most touching things which she is represented as saying and doing are taken from actual observation of the distresses and trials under which different persons were suffering, some of them strangers to me, and others daily under my notice. I was born too late to have a distinct remembrance of the origin of the American war, but the state in which I represent Robert's mind to be I had frequent opportunities of observing at the commencement of our rupture with France in '93, opportunities of which I availed myself in the story of the Female Vagrant as told in the poem on "Guilt and Sorrow." The account given by the Solitary towards the close of the second book, in all that belongs to the character of the Old Man, was taken from a Grasmere pauper, who was boarded in the last house quitting the vale on the road to Ambleside: the character of his hostess, and all that befell the poor man upon the mountain, belong to Paterdale: the woman I knew well; her name was ------ J- ---, and she was exactly such a person as I describe. The ruins of the old chapel, among which the man was found lying, may yet be traced, and stood upon the ridge that divides Paterdale from Boardale and Martindale, having been placed there for the convenience of both districts. The glorious appearance disclosed above and among the mountains was described partly from what my friend Mr. Luff, who then lived in Paterdale, witnessed upon that melancholy occasion, and partly from what Mrs. Wordsworth and I had seen in company with Sir George and Lady Beaumont above Hartshope Hall on our way from Paterdale to Ambleside.

And now for a few words upon the Church, its Monuments, and the Deceased who are spoken of as lying in the surrounding churchyard. But first for the one picture, given by the Pastor and the Wanderer, of the Living. In this nothing is introduced but what was taken from nature and real life. The cottage is called Hacket, and stands as described on the southern extremity of the ridge which separates the two Langdales: the pair who inhabited it were called Jonathan and Betty Yewdale. Once when our children were ill, of whooping-cough I think, we took them for change of air to this cottage, and were in the habit of going there to drink tea upon fine summer afternoons, so that we became intimately acquainted with the characters, habits, and lives of these good, and, let me say, in the main, wise people. The matron had, in her early youth, been a servant in a house at Hawkshead, where several boys boarded, while I was a schoolboy there. I did not remember her as having served in that capacity; but we had many little anecdotes to tell to each other of remarkable boys, incidents and adventures which had made a noise in their day in that small town. These two persons afterwards settled at Rydal, where they both died.

The church, as already noticed, is that of Grasmere. The interior of it has been improved lately--made warmer by under- drawing the roof and raising the floor--but the rude and antique majesty of its former appearance has been impaired by painting the rafters; and the oak benches, with a simple rail at the back dividing them from each other, have given way to seats that have more the appearance of pews. It is remarkable that, excepting only the pew belonging to Rydal Hall, that to Rydal Mount, the one to the Parsonage, and I believe another, the men and women still continue, as used to be the custom in Wales, to sit separate from each other. Is this practice as old as the Reformation? and when and how did it originate? In the Jewish synagogues and in Lady Huntingdon's chapels the sexes are divided in the same way. In the adjoining churchyard greater changes have taken place. It is now not a little crowded with tombstones; and near the school-house which stands in the churchyard is an ugly structure, built to receive the hearse, which is recently come into use. It would not be worth while to allude to this building or the hearse-vehicle it contains, but that the latter has been the means of introducing a change much to be lamented in the mode of conducting funerals among the mountains. Now, the coffin is lodged in the hearse at the door of the house of the deceased, and the corpse is so conveyed to the churchyard gate: all the solemnity which formerly attended its progress, as described in the poem, is put an end to. So much do I regret this, that I beg to be excused for giving utterance here to a wish that, should it befall me to die at Rydal Mount, my own body may be carried to Grasmere church after the manner in which, till lately, that of every one was borne to that place of sepulture, namely, on the shoulders of neighbours, no house being passed without some words of a funeral psalm being sung at the time by the attendants. When I put into the mouth of the Wanderer, "Many precious rites and customs of our rural ancestry are gone or stealing from us; this I hope will last for ever," and what follows, little did I foresee that the observance and mode of proceeding, which had often affected me so much, would so soon be superseded. Having said much of the injury done to this churchyard, let me add that one is at liberty to look forward to a time when, by the growth of the yew-trees, thriving there, a solemnity will be spread over the place that will in some degree make amends for the old simple character which has already been so much encroached upon, and will be still more every year. I will here set down, more at length, what has been mentioned in a previous note, that my friend Sir George Beaumont, having long ago purchased the beautiful piece of water called Loughrigg Tarn, on the Banks of which he intended to build, I told him that a person in Kendal who was attached to the place wished to purchase it. Sir George, finding the possession of no use to him, consented to part with it, and placed the purchase-money--twenty pounds--at my disposal for any local use which I thought proper. Accordingly I resolved to plant yew-trees in the churchyard, and had four pretty strong large oak enclosures made, in each of which was planted, under my own eye, and principally if not entirely by my own hand, two young trees, with the intention of leaving the one that throve best to stand. Many years after, Mr. Barber, who will long be remembered in Grasmere; Mr. Greenwood, the chief landed proprietor; and myself, had four other enclosures made in the churchyard at our own expense, in each of which was planted a tree taken from its neighbour, and they all stand thriving admirably, the fences having been removed as no longer necessary. May the trees be taken care of hereafter when we are all gone, and some of them will perhaps at some far distant time rival in majesty the yew of Lorton and those which I have described as growing in Borrowdale, where they are still to be seen in grand assemblage.

And now for the persons that are selected as lying in the churchyard. But first for the individual whose grave is prepared to receive him. His story is here truly related: he was a school- fellow of mine for some years. He came to us when he was at least seventeen years of age, very tall, robust, and full-grown. This prevented him from falling into the amusements and games of the school: consequently he gave more time to books. He was not remarkably bright or quick, but by industry he made a progress more than respectable. His parents not being wealthy enough to send him to college, when he left Hawkshead he became a schoolmaster, with a view to prepare himself for holy orders. About this time he fell in love as related in the poem, and everything followed as there described, except that I do not know when and where he died. The number of youths that came to Hawkshead school, from the families of the humble yeomanry, to be educated to a certain degree of scholarship as a preparation for the church, was considerable, and the fortunes of these persons in after life various of course, and of some not a little remarkable. I have now one of this class in my eye who became an usher in a preparatory school and ended in making a large fortune. His manners when he came to Hawkshead were as uncouth as well could be; but he had good abilities, with skill to turn them to account; and when the master of the school, to which he was usher, died, he stept into his place and became proprietor of the establishment. He contrived to manage it with such address, and so much to the taste of what is called high society and the fashionable world, that no school of the kind, even till he retired, was in such high request. Ministers of state, the wealthiest gentry, and nobility of the first rank, vied with each other in bespeaking a place for their sons in the seminary of this fortunate teacher. In the solitude of Grasmere, while living as a married man in a cottage of eight pounds per annum rent, I often used to smile at the tales which reached me of his brilliant career. Not two hundred yards from the cottage in Grasmere, just mentioned, to which I retired, this gentleman, who many years afterwards purchased a small estate in the neighbourhood, is now erecting a boat-house, with an upper story, to be resorted to as an entertaining-room when he and his associates may feel inclined to take their pastime on the lake. Every passenger will be disgusted with the sight of this edifice, not merely as a tasteless thing in itself, but as utterly out of place, and peculiarly fitted, as far as it is observed (and it obtrudes itself on notice at every point of view), to mar the beauty and destroy the pastoral simplicity of the vale. For my own part and that of my household it is our utter detestation, standing by a shore to which, before the highroad was made to pass that way, we used daily and hourly to repair for seclusion and for the shelter of a grove under which I composed many of my poems, the "Brothers" especially, and for this reason we gave the grove that name.

            "That which each man loved
             And prized in his peculiar nook of earth
             Dies with him, or is changed."


So much for my old school-fellow and his exploits. I will only add that the foundation has twice failed, from the lake no doubt being intolerant of the intrusion.

The Miner, next described as having found his treasure after twice ten years of labour, lived in Paterdale, and the story is true to the letter. It seems to me, however, rather remarkable that the strength of mind which had supported him through this long unrewarded labour did not enable him to bear its successful issue. Several times in the course of my life I have heard of sudden influxes of great wealth being followed by derangement, and in one instance the shock of good fortune was so great as to produce absolute idiocy: but these all happened where there had been little or no previous effort to acquire the riches, and therefore such a consequence might the more naturally be expected than in the case of the solitary Miner. In reviewing his story, one cannot but regret that such perseverance was not sustained by a worthier object. Archimedes leapt out of his bath and ran about the streets proclaiming his discovery in a transport of joy, but we are not told that he lost either his life or his senses in consequence. The next character, to whom the Priest is led by contrast with the resoluteness displayed by the foregoing, is taken from a person born and bred in Grasmere, by name Dawson; and whose talents, disposition, and way of life were such as are here delineated. I did not know him, but all was fresh in memory when we settled at Grasmere in the beginning of the century. From this point, the conversation leads to the mention of two individuals who, by their several fortunes, were, at different times, driven to take refuge at the small and obscure town of Hawkshead on the skirt of these mountains. Their stories I had from the dear old dame with whom, as a schoolboy and afterwards, I lodged for nearly the space of ten years. The elder, the Jacobite, was named Drummond, and was of a high family in Scotland: the Hanoverian Whig bore the name of Vandeput, and might perhaps be a descendant of some Dutchman who had come over in the train of King William. At all events his zeal was such that he ruined himself by a contest for the representation of London or Westminster, undertaken to support his party; and retired to this corner of the world, selected, as it had been by Drummond, for that obscurity which, since visiting the Lakes became fashionable, it has no longer retained. So much was this region considered out of the way till a late period, that persons who had fled from justice used often to resort hither for concealment; and some were so bold as to, not unfrequently, make excursions from the place of their retreat, for the purpose of committing fresh offences. Such was particularly the case with two brothers of the name of Weston who took up their abode at Old Brathay, I think about seventy years ago. They were highwaymen, and lived there some time without being discovered, though it was known that they often disappeared in a way and upon errands which could not be accounted for. Their horses were noticed as being of a choice breed, and I have heard from the Relph family, one of whom was a saddler in the town of Kendal, that they were curious in their saddles and housings and accoutrements of their horses. They, as I have heard, and as was universally believed, were in the end both taken and hanged.

            "Tall was her stature; her complexion dark
             And saturnine."
This person lived at Town-end, and was almost our next neighbour. I have little to notice concerning her beyond what is said in the poem. She was a most striking instance how far a woman may surpass in talent, in knowledge, and culture of mind, those with and among whom she lives, and yet fall below them in Christian virtues of the heart and spirit. It seemed almost, and I say it with grief, that in proportion as she excelled in the one, she failed in the other. How frequently has one to observe in both sexes the same thing, and how mortifying is the reflection!

            "As, on a sunny bank, a tender lamb
             Lurks in safe shelter from the winds of March."
The story that follows was told to Mrs. Wordsworth and my sister by the sister of this unhappy young woman; and every particular was exactly as I have related. The party was not known to me, though she lived at Hawkshead, but it was after I left school. The clergyman, who administered comfort to her in her distress, I knew well. Her sister who told the story was the wife of a leading yeoman in the vale of Grasmere, and they were an affectionate pair and greatly respected by every one who knew them. Neither lived to be old; and their estate--which was perhaps the most considerable then in the vale, and was endeared to them by many remembrances of a salutary character not easily understood, or sympathised with, by those who are born to great affluence--passed to their eldest son, according to the practice of these vales, who died soon after he came into possession. He was an amiable and promising youth, but was succeeded by an only brother, a good-natured man, who fell into habits of drinking, by which he gradually reduced his property; and the other day the last acre of it was sold, and his wife and children and he himself, still surviving, have very little left to live upon, which it would not perhaps have been worth while to record here but that, through all trials, this woman has proved a model of patience, meekness, affectionate forbearance, and forgiveness. Their eldest son, who, through the vices of his father, has thus been robbed of an ancient family inheritance, was never heard to murmur or complain against the cause of their distress, and is now (1843) deservedly the chief prop of his mother's hopes.

The clergyman and his family described at the beginning of the seventh book were, during many years, our principal associates in the vale of Grasmere, unless I were to except our very nearest neighbours. I have entered so particularly into the main points of their history, that I will barely testify in prose that--with the single exception of the particulars of their journey to Grasmere, which, however, was exactly copied from in another instance--the whole that I have said of them is as faithful to the truth as words can make it. There was much talent in the family: the eldest son was distinguished for poetical talent, of which a specimen is given in my notes to the sonnets to the Duddon. Once, when in our cottage at Town-end I was talking with him about poetry, in the course of conversation I presumed to find fault with the versification of Pope, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer: he defended him with a warmth that indicated much irritation: nevertheless I would not abandon my point, and said, "In compass and variety of sound your own versification surpasses his." Never shall I forget the change in his countenance and tone of voice: the storm was laid in a moment; he no longer disputed my judgment, and I passed immediately in his mind, no doubt, for as great a critic as ever lived. I ought to add, he was a clergyman and a well-educated man, and his verbal memory was the most remarkable of any individual I have known, except a Mr. Archer, an Irishman, who lived several years in this neighbourhood, and who, in this faculty, was a prodigy; he afterwards became deranged, and I fear continues so, if alive. Then follows the character of Robert Walker, for which see notes to the Duddon. Then that of the deaf man, whose epitaph may be seen in the churchyard at the head of Haweswater, and whose qualities of mind and heart, and their benign influence in conjunction with his privation, I had from his relatives on the spot. The blind man, next commemorated, was John Gough, of Kendal, a man known, far beyond his neighbourhood, for his talents and attainments in natural history and science. Of the Infant's grave, next noticed, I will only say, it is an exact picture of what fell under my own observation; and all persons who are intimately acquainted with cottage life must often have observed like instances of the working of the domestic affections.

            "A volley thrice repeated o'er the corse
             Let down into the hollow of that grave."
This young volunteer bore the name of Dawson, and was younger brother, if I am not mistaken, to the prodigal of whose character and fortunes an account is given towards the beginning of the preceding book. The father of the family I knew well; he was a man of literary education and of experience in society much beyond what was common among the inhabitants of the vale. He had lived a good while in the Highlands of Scotland, as a manager of iron- works at Bunaw, and had acted as clerk to one of my predecessors in the office of Distributor of Stamps, when he used to travel round the country collecting and bringing home the money due to Government, in gold, which, it may be worth while to mention for the sake of my friends, was deposited in the cell or iron closet under the west window of the long room at Rydal Mount, which still exists with the iron doors that guarded the property. This of course was before the time of Bills and Notes. The two sons of this person had no doubt been led by the knowledge of their father to take more delight in scholarship, and had been accustomed in their own minds to take a wider view of social interests than was usual among their associates. The premature death of this gallant young man was much lamented, and, as an attendant at the funeral, I myself witnessed the ceremony and the effect of it as described in the poem.

            "Tradition tells
             That, in Eliza's golden days, a Knight
             Came on a war-horse."
            "The house is gone."
The pillars of the gateway in front of the mansion remained when we first took up our abode at Grasmere. Two or three cottages still remain, which are called Knott-houses from the name of the gentleman (I have called him a knight) concerning whom these traditions survive. He was the ancestor of tho Knott family, formerly considerable proprietors in the district. What follows in the discourse of the Wanderer upon the changes he had witnessed in rural life, by the introduction of machinery, is truly described from what I myself saw during my boyhood and early youth, and from what was often told me by persons of this humble calling. Happily, most happily, for these mountains, the mischief was diverted from the banks of their beautiful streams, and transferred to open and flat countries abounding in coal, where the agency of steam was found much more effectual for carrying on those demoralising works. Had it not been for this invention, long before the present time every torrent and river in this district would have had its factory, large and populous in proportion to the power of the water that could there have been commanded. Parliament has interfered to prevent the night-work which was once carried on in these mills as actively as during the daytime, and by necessity still more perniciously--a sad disgrace to the proprietors, and to the nation which could so long tolerate such unnatural proceedings. Reviewing at this late period, 1843, what I put into the mouths of my interlocutors a few years after the commencement of the century, I grieve that so little progress has been made in diminishing the evils deplored, or promoting the benefits of education which the Wanderer anticipates. The results of Lord Ashley's labours to defer the time when children might legally be allowed to work in factories, and his endeavours to limit still farther the hours of permitted labour, have fallen far short of his own humane wishes, and those of every benevolent and right- minded man who has carefully attended to this subject: and in the present session of Parliament (1843) Sir James Graham's attempt to establish a course of religious education among the children employed in factories has been abandoned, in consequence of what might easily have been foreseen, the vehement and turbulent opposition of the Dissenters: so that, for many years to come, it may be thought expedient to leave the religious instruction of children entirely in the hands of the several denominations of Christians in the island, each body to work according to its own means and in its own way. Such is my own confidence, a confidence I share with many others of my most valued friends, in the superior advantages, both religious and social, which attend a course of instruction presided over and guided by the clergy of the Church of England, that I have no doubt that, if but once its members, lay and clerical, were duly sensible of those benefits, their church would daily gain ground, and rapidly, upon every shape and fashion of Dissent: and in that case, a great majority in Parliament being sensible of these benefits, the Ministers of the country might be emboldened, were it necessary, to apply funds of the State to the support of education on Church principles. Before I conclude, I cannot forbear noticing the strenuous efforts made at this time in Parliament, by so many persons, to extend manufacturing and commercial industry at the expense of agricultural, though we have recently had abundant proofs that the apprehensions expressed by the Wanderer were not groundless.

            "I spake of mischief by the wise diffused
             With gladness, thinking that the more it spreads
             The healthier, the securer, we become--
             Delusion which a moment may destroy!"
The Chartists are well aware of this possibility, and cling to it with an ardour and perseverance which nothing but wiser and more brotherly dealing towards the many, on the part of the wealthy few, can moderate or remove.

            "While, from the grassy mountain's open side,
             We gazed, in silence hushed."
The point here fixed upon in my imagination is half-way up the northern side of Loughrigg Fell, from which the Pastor and his companions were supposed to look upwards to the sky and mountain- tops, and round the vale, with the lake lying immediately beneath them.

            "But turned not without welcome promise made,
             That he would share the pleasures and pursuits
             Of yet another summer's day, consumed
             In wandering with us."
When I reported this promise of the Solitary, and long after, it was my wish, and I might say intention, that we should resume our wanderings, and pass the Borders into his native country, where, as I hoped, he might witness, in the society of the Wanderer, some religious ceremony--a sacrament, say, in the open fields, or a preaching among the mountains--which, by recalling to his mind the days of his early childhood, when he had been present on such occasions in company with his parents and nearest kindred, might have dissolved his heart into tenderness, and so have done more towards restoring the Christian faith in which he had been educated, and, with that, contentedness and even cheerfulness of mind, than all that the Wanderer and Pastor, by their several effusions and addresses, had been able to effect. An issue like this was in my intentions. But, alas!

            "'Mid the wreck of IS and WAS,
             Things incomplete and purposes betrayed
             Make sadder transits o'er thought's optic glass
             Than noblest objects utterly decayed!"

                             _____________

                           TO THE RIGHT HON.
                    WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K.G.
                                ETC. ETC.

             OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer!
             In youth I roamed, on youthful pleasures bent:
             And mused in rocky cell or sylvan tent,
             Beside swift-flowing Lowther's current clear.
             --Now, by thy care befriended, I appear
             Before thee, LONSDALE, and this Work present,
             A token (may it prove a monument!)
             Of high respect and gratitude sincere.
             Gladly would I have waited till my task
             Had reached its close; but Life is insecure,
             And Hope full oft fallacious as a dream:
             Therefore, for what is here produced, I ask
             Thy favour; trusting that thou wilt not deem
             The offering, though imperfect, premature.
                                            WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND,
July 29, 1814.


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1814
THE Title-page announces that this is only a portion of a poem; and the Reader must be here apprised that it belongs to the second part of a long and laborious Work, which is to consist of three parts.--The Author will candidly acknowledge that, if the first of these had been completed, and in such a manner as to satisfy his own mind, he should have preferred the natural order of publication, and have given that to the world first; but, as the second division of the Work was designed to refer more to passing events, and to an existing state of things, than the others were meant to do, more continuous exertion was naturally bestowed upon it, and greater progress made here than in the rest of the poem; and as this part does not depend upon the preceding to a degree which will materially injure its own peculiar interest, the Author, complying with the earnest entreaties of some valued Friends, presents the following pages to the Public.

It may be proper to state whence the poem, of which "The Excursion" is a part, derives its Title of THE RECLUSE.--Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary Work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such employment. As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. That Work [The Prelude], addressed to a dear Friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the Author's Intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it was a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society; and to be entitled, "The Recluse"; as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.--The preparatory poem 1 is biographical, and conducts the history of the Author's mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two Works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the ante- chapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor Pieces, which have been long before the Public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive Reader to have such connection with the main Work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices.

The Author would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances either unfinished or unpublished, if he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the Public entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please and, he would hope, to benefit his countrymen.--Nothing further need be added, than that the first and third parts of "The Recluse" will consist chiefly of meditations in the Author's own person; and that in the intermediate part ("The Excursion") the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.

It is not the Author's intention formally to announce a system; it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the Reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the meantime the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of "The Recluse," may be acceptable as a kind of "Prospectus" of the design and scope of the whole Poem.

[The passage referred to begins with the line, "On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life," see page 343 of the present edition, and ends with, "Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!" page 345.]

THE EXCURSION
BOOK FIRST
THE WANDERER

          'TWAS summer, and the sun had mounted high:
          Southward the landscape indistinctly glared
          Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs,
          In clearest air ascending, showed far off
          A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung
          From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in spots
          Determined and unmoved, with steady beams
          Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed;
          To him most pleasant who on soft cool moss
          Extends his careless limbs along the front                  10
          Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts
          A twilight of its own, an ample shade,
          Where the wren warbles, while the dreaming man,
          Half conscious of the soothing melody,
          With side-long eye looks out upon the scene,
          By power of that impending covert, thrown
          To finer distance. Mine was at that hour
          Far other lot, yet with good hope that soon
          Under a shade as grateful I should find
          Rest, and be welcomed there to livelier joy.                20
          Across a bare wide Common I was toiling
          With languid steps that by the slippery turf
          Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse
          The host of insects gathering round my face,
          And ever with me as I paced along.

            Upon that open moorland stood a grove,
          The wished-for port to which my course was bound.
          Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom
          Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms,
          Appeared a roofless Hut; four naked walls                   30
          That stared upon each other!--I looked round,
          And to my wish and to my hope espied
          The Friend I sought; a Man of reverend age,
          But stout and hale, for travel unimpaired.
          There was he seen upon the cottage-bench,
          Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep;
          An iron-pointed staff lay at his side.

            Him had I marked the day before--alone
          And stationed in the public way, with face
          Turned toward the sun then setting, while that staff        40
          Afforded, to the figure of the man
          Detained for contemplation or repose,
          Graceful support; his countenance as he stood
          Was hidden from my view, and he remained
          Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight,
          With slackened footsteps I advanced, and soon
          A glad congratulation we exchanged
          At such unthought-of meeting.--For the night
          We parted, nothing willingly; and now
          He by appointment waited for me here,                       50
          Under the covert of these clustering elms.

            We were tried Friends: amid a pleasant vale,
          In the antique market-village where was passed
          My school-time, an apartment he had owned,
          To which at intervals the Wanderer drew,
          And found a kind of home or harbour there.
          He loved me, from a swarm of rosy boys
          Singled out me, as he in sport would say,
          For my grave looks, too thoughtful for my years.
          As I grew up, it was my best delight                        60
          To be his chosen comrade. Many a time,
          On holidays, we rambled through the woods:
          We sate--we walked; he pleased me with report
          Of things which he had seen; and often touched
          Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind
          Turned inward; or at my request would sing
          Old songs, the product of his native hills;
          A skilful distribution of sweet sounds,
          Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed
          As cool refreshing water, by the care                       70
          Of the industrious husbandman, diffused
          Through a parched meadow-ground, in time of drought.
          Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse;
          How precious, when in riper days I learned
          To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice
          In the plain presence of his dignity!

            Oh! many are the Poets that are sown
          By Nature; men endowed with highest gifts,
          The vision and the faculty divine;
          Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse,                    80
          (Which, in the docile season of their youth,
          It was denied them to acquire, through lack
          Of culture and the inspiring aid of books,
          Or haply by a temper too severe,
          Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame)
          Nor having e'er, as life advanced, been led
          By circumstance to take unto the height
          The measure of themselves, these favoured Beings,
          All but a scattered few, live out their time,
          Husbanding that which they possess within,                  90
          And go to the grave, unthought of. Strongest minds
          Are often those of whom the noisy world
          Hears least; else surely this Man had not left
          His graces unrevealed and unproclaimed.
          But, as the mind was filled with inward light,
          So not without distinction had he lived,
          Beloved and honoured--far as he was known.
          And some small portion of his eloquent speech,
          And something that may serve to set in view
          The feeling pleasures of his loneliness,                   100
          His observations, and the thoughts his mind
          Had dealt with--I will here record in verse;
          Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink
          Or rise as venerable Nature leads,
          The high and tender Muses shall accept
          With gracious smile, deliberately pleased,
          And listening Time reward with sacred praise.

            Among the hills of Athol he was born;
          Where, on a small hereditary farm,
          An unproductive slip of rugged ground,                     110
          His Parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt;
          A virtuous household, though exceeding poor!
          Pure livers were they all, austere and grave,
          And fearing God; the very children taught
          Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word,
          And an habitual piety, maintained
          With strictness scarcely known on English ground.

            From his sixth year, the Boy of whom I speak,
          In summer, tended cattle on the hills;
          But, through the inclement and the perilous days           120
          Of long-continuing winter, he repaired,
          Equipped with satchel, to a school, that stood
          Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge,
          Remote from view of city spire, or sound
          Of minster clock! From that bleak tenement
          He, many an evening, to his distant home
          In solitude returning, saw the hills
          Grow larger in the darkness; all alone
          Beheld the stars come out above his head,
          And travelled through the wood, with no one near           130
          To whom he might confess the things he saw.

            So the foundations of his mind were laid.
          In such communion, not from terror free,
          While yet a child, and long before his time,
          Had he perceived the presence and the power
          Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed
          So vividly great objects that they lay
          Upon his mind like substances, whose presence
          Perplexed the bodily sense. He had received
          A precious gift; for, as he grew in years,                 140
          With these impressions would he still compare
          All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms;
          And, being still unsatisfied with aught
          Of dimmer character, he thence attained
          An active power to fasten images
          Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines
          Intensely brooded, even till they acquired
          The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he fail,
          While yet a child, with a child's eagerness
          Incessantly to turn his ear and eye                        150
          On all things which the moving seasons brought
          To feed such appetite--nor this alone
          Appeased his yearning:--in the after-day
          Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
          And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags
          He sate, and even in their fixed lineaments,
          Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
          Or by creative feeling overborne,
          Or by predominance of thought oppressed,
          Even in their fixed and steady lineaments                  160
          He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind,
          Expression ever varying!
                                    Thus informed,
          He had small need of books; for many a tale
          Traditionary, round the mountains hung,
          And many a legend, peopling the dark woods,
          Nourished Imagination in her growth,
          And gave the Mind that apprehensive power
          By which she is made quick to recognise
          The moral properties and scope of things.
          But eagerly he read, and read again,                       170
          Whate'er the minister's old shelf supplied;
          The life and death of martyrs, who sustained,
          With will inflexible, those fearful pangs
          Triumphantly displayed in records left
          Of persecution, and the Covenant--times
          Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour!
          And there, by lucky hap, had been preserved
          A straggling volume, torn and incomplete,
          That left half-told the preternatural tale,
          Romance of giants, chronicle of fiends,                    180
          Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts
          Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire,
          Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled too,
          With long and ghostly shanks--forms which once seen
          Could never be forgotten!
                                     In his heart,
          Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant,
          Was wanting yet the pure delight of love
          By sound diffused, or by the breathing air,
          Or by the silent looks of happy things,
          Or flowing from the universal face                         190
          Of earth and sky. But he had felt the power
          Of Nature, and already was prepared,
          By his intense conceptions, to receive
          Deeply the lesson deep of love which he,
          Whom Nature, by whatever means, has taught
          To feel intensely, cannot but receive.

            Such was the Boy--but for the growing Youth
          What soul was his, when, from the naked top
          Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
          Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked--         200
          Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
          And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay
          Beneath him:--Far and wide the clouds were touched,
          And in their silent faces could he read
          Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
          Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
          The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form,
          All melted into him; they swallowed up
          His animal being; in them did he live,
          And by them did he live; they were his life.               210
          In such access of mind, in such high hour
          Of visitation from the living God,
          Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired.
          No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request;
          Rapt into still communion that transcends
          The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
          His mind was a thanksgiving to the power
          That made him; it was blessedness and love!

            A Herdsman on the lonely mountain tops,
          Such intercourse was his, and in this sort                 220
          Was his existence oftentimes 'possessed'.
          O then how beautiful, how bright, appeared
          The written promise! Early had he learned
          To reverence the volume that displays
          The mystery, the life which cannot die;
          But in the mountains did he 'feel' his faith.
          All things, responsive to the writing, there
          Breathed immortality, revolving life,
          And greatness still revolving; infinite:
          There littleness was not; the least of things              230
          Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped
          Her prospects, nor did he believe,--he 'saw'.
          What wonder if his being thus became
          Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires,
          Low thoughts had there no place; yet was his heart
          Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude,
          Oft as he called those ecstasies to mind,
          And whence they flowed; and from them he acquired
          Wisdom, which works through patience; thence he learned
          In oft-recurring hours of sober thought                    240
          To look on Nature with a humble heart.
          Self-questioned where it did not understand,
          And with a superstitious eye of love.

            So passed the time; yet to the nearest town
          He duly went with what small overplus
          His earnings might supply, and brought away
          The book that most had tempted his desires
          While at the stall he read. Among the hills
          He gazed upon that mighty orb of song,
          The divine Milton. Lore of different kind,                 250
          The annual savings of a toilsome life,
          His Schoolmaster supplied; books that explain
          The purer elements of truth involved
          In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe,
          (Especially perceived where nature droops
          And feeling is suppressed) preserve the mind
          Busy in solitude and poverty.
          These occupations oftentimes deceived
          The listless hours, while in the hollow vale,
          Hollow and green, he lay on the green turf                 260
          In pensive idleness. What could he do,
          Thus daily thirsting, in that lonesome life,
          With blind endeavours? Yet, still uppermost,
          Nature was at his heart as if he felt,
          Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power
          In all things that from her sweet influence
          Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues,
          Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms,
          He clothed the nakedness of austere truth.
          While yet he lingered in the rudiments                     270
          Of science, and among her simplest laws,
          His triangles--they were the stars of heaven,
          The silent stars! Oft did he take delight
          To measure the altitude of some tall crag
          That is the eagle's birth-place, or some peak
          Familiar with forgotten years, that shows,
          Inscribed upon its visionary sides,
          The history of many a winter storm,
          Or obscure records of the path of fire.

            And thus before his eighteenth year was told,            280
          Accumulated feelings pressed his heart
          With still increasing weight; he was o'er-powered
          By Nature; by the turbulence subdued
          Of his own mind; by mystery and hope,
          And the first virgin passion of a soul
          Communing with the glorious universe.
          Full often wished he that the winds might rage
          When they were silent: far more fondly now
          Than in his earlier season did he love
          Tempestuous nights--the conflict and the sounds            290
          That live in darkness. From his intellect
          And from the stillness of abstracted thought
          He asked repose; and, failing oft to win
          The peace required, he scanned the laws of light
          Amid the roar of torrents, where they send
          From hollow clefts up to the clearer air
          A cloud of mist that, smitten by the sun,
          Varies its rainbow hues. But vainly thus,
          And vainly by all other means, he strove
          To mitigate the fever of his heart.                        300

            In dreams, in study, and in ardent thought,
          Thus was he reared; much wanting to assist
          The growth of intellect, yet gaining more,
          And every moral feeling of his soul
          Strengthened and braced, by breathing in content
          The keen, the wholesome, air of poverty,
          And drinking from the well of homely life.
          --But, from past liberty, and tried restraints,
          He now was summoned to select the course
          Of humble industry that promised best                      310
          To yield him no unworthy maintenance.
          Urged by his Mother, he essayed to teach
          A village-school--but wandering thoughts were then
          A misery to him; and the Youth resigned
          A task he was unable to perform.

            That stern yet kindly Spirit, who constrains
          The Savoyard to quit his naked rocks,
          The free-born Swiss to leave his narrow vales,
          (Spirit attached to regions mountainous
          Like their own stedfast clouds) did now impel              320
          His restless mind to look abroad with hope.
          --An irksome drudgery seems it to plod on,
          Through hot and dusty ways, or pelting storm,
          A vagrant Merchant under a heavy load,
          Bent as he moves, and needing frequent rest;
          Yet do such travellers find their own delight;
          And their hard service, deemed debasing now
          Gained merited respect in simpler times;
          When squire, and priest, and they who round them dwelt
          In rustic sequestration--all dependent                     330
          Upon the PEDLAR'S toil--supplied their wants,
          Or pleased their fancies, with the wares he brought.
          Not ignorant was the Youth that still no few
          Of his adventurous countrymen were led
          By perseverance in this track of life
          To competence and ease:--to him it offered
          Attractions manifold;--and this he chose.
          --His Parents on the enterprise bestowed
          Their farewell benediction, but with hearts
          Foreboding evil. From his native hills                     340
          He wandered far; much did he see of men,
          Their manners, their enjoyments, and pursuits,
          Their passions and their feelings; chiefly those
          Essential and eternal in the heart,
          That, 'mid the simpler forms of rural life,
          Exist more simple in their elements,
          And speak a plainer language. In the woods,
          A lone Enthusiast, and among the fields,
          Itinerant in this labour, he had passed
          The better portion of his time; and there                  350
          Spontaneously had his affections thriven
          Amid the bounties of the year, the peace
          And liberty of nature; there he kept
          In solitude and solitary thought
          His mind in a just equipoise of love.
          Serene it was, unclouded by the cares
          Of ordinary life; unvexed, unwarped
          By partial bondage. In his steady course,
          No piteous revolutions had he felt,
          No wild varieties of joy and grief.                        360
          Unoccupied by sorrow of its own,
          His heart lay open; and, by nature tuned
          And constant disposition of his thoughts
          To sympathy with man, he was alive
          To all that was enjoyed where'er he went,
          And all that was endured; for, in himself
          Happy, and quiet in his cheerfulness,
          He had no painful pressure from without
          That made him turn aside from wretchedness
          With coward fears. He could 'afford' to suffer             370
          With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came
          That in our best experience he was rich,
          And in the wisdom of our daily life.
          For hence, minutely, in his various rounds,
          He had observed the progress and decay
          Of many minds, of minds and bodies too;
          The history of many families;
          How they had prospered; how they were o'erthrown
          By passion or mischance, or such misrule
          Among the unthinking masters of the earth                  380
          As makes the nations groan.
                                       This active course
          He followed till provision for his wants
          Had been obtained;--the Wanderer then resolved
          To pass the remnant of his days, untasked
          With needless services, from hardship free.
          His calling laid aside, he lived at ease:
          But still he loved to pace the public roads
          And the wild paths; and, by the summer's warmth
          Invited, often would he leave his home
          And journey far, revisiting the scenes                     390
          That to his memory were most endeared.
          --Vigorous in health, of hopeful spirits, undamped
          By worldly-mindedness or anxious care;
          Observant, studious, thoughtful, and refreshed
          By knowledge gathered up from day to day;
          Thus had he lived a long and innocent life.

            The Scottish Church, both on himself and those
          With whom from childhood he grew up, had held
          The strong hand of her purity; and still
          Had watched him with an unrelenting eye.                   400
          This he remembered in his riper age
          With gratitude, and reverential thoughts.
          But by the native vigour of his mind,
          By his habitual wanderings out of doors,
          By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works,
          Whate'er, in docile childhood or in youth,
          He had imbibed of fear or darker thought
          Was melted all away; so true was this,
          That sometimes his religion seemed to me
          Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods;                 410
          Who to the model of his own pure heart
          Shaped his belief, as grace divine inspired,
          And human reason dictated with awe.
          --And surely never did there live on earth
          A man of kindlier nature. The rough sports
          And teasing ways of children vexed not him;
          Indulgent listener was he to the tongue
          Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man's tale,
          To his fraternal sympathy addressed,
          Obtain reluctant hearing.
                                     Plain his garb;                 420
          Such as might suit a rustic Sire, prepared
          For sabbath duties; yet he was a man
          Whom no one could have passed without remark.
          Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs
          And his whole figure breathed intelligence.
          Time had compressed the freshness of his cheek
          Into a narrower circle of deep red,
          But had not tamed his eye; that, under brows
          Shaggy and grey, had meanings which it brought
          From years of youth; which, like a Being made              430
          Of many Beings, he had wondrous skill
          To blend with knowledge of the years to come,
          Human, or such as lie beyond the grave.
                             _____________

            So was He framed; and such his course of life
          Who now, with no appendage but a staff,
          The prized memorial of relinquished toils,
          Upon that cottage-bench reposed his limbs,
          Screened from the sun. Supine the Wanderer lay,
          His eyes as if in drowsiness half shut,
          The shadows of the breezy elms above                       440
          Dappling his face. He had not heard the sound
          Of my approaching steps, and in the shade
          Unnoticed did I stand some minutes' space.
          At length I hailed him, seeing that his hat
          Was moist with water-drops, as if the brim
          Had newly scooped a running stream. He rose,
          And ere our lively greeting into peace
          Had settled, "'Tis," said I, "a burning day:
          My lips are parched with thirst, but you, it seems
          Have somewhere found relief." He, at the word,             450
          Pointing towards a sweet-briar, bade me climb
          The fence where that aspiring shrub looked out
          Upon the public way. It was a plot
          Of garden ground run wild, its matted weeds
          Marked with the steps of those, whom, as they passed,
          The gooseberry trees that shot in long lank slips,
          Or currants, hanging from their leafless stems,
          In scanty strings, had tempted to o'erleap
          The broken wall. I looked around, and there,
          Where two tall hedge-rows of thick alder boughs            460
          Joined in a cold damp nook, espied a well
          Shrouded with willow-flowers and plumy fern.
          My thirst I slaked, and, from the cheerless spot
          Withdrawing, straightway to the shade returned
          Where sate the old Man on the cottage-bench;
          And, while, beside him, with uncovered head,
          I yet was standing, freely to respire,
          And cool my temples in the fanning air,
          Thus did he speak. "I see around me here
          Things which you cannot see: we die, my Friend,            470
          Nor we alone, but that which each man loved
          And prized in his peculiar nook of earth
          Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon
          Even of the good is no memorial left.
          --The Poets, in their elegies and songs
          Lamenting the departed, call the groves,
          They call upon the hills and streams, to mourn,
          And senseless rocks; nor idly; for they speak,
          In these their invocations, with a voice
          Obedient to the strong creative power                      480
          Of human passion. Sympathies there are
          More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth,
          That steal upon the meditative mind,
          And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood,
          And eyed its waters till we seemed to feel
          One sadness, they and I. For them a bond
          Of brotherhood is broken: time has been
          When, every day, the touch of human hand
          Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up
          In mortal stillness; and they ministered                   490
          To human comfort. Stooping down to drink,
          Upon the slimy foot-stone I espied
          The useless fragment of a wooden bowl,
          Green with the moss of years, and subject only
          To the soft handling of the elements:
          There let it lie--how foolish are such thoughts!
          Forgive them;--never--never did my steps
          Approach this door but she who dwelt within
          A daughter's welcome gave me, and I loved her
          As my own child. Oh, Sir! the good die first,              500
          And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
          Burn to the socket. Many a passenger
          Hath blessed poor Margaret for her gentle looks,
          When she upheld the cool refreshment drawn
          From that forsaken spring; and no one came
          But he was welcome; no one went away
          But that it seemed she loved him. She is dead,
          The light extinguished of her lonely hut,
          The hut itself abandoned to decay,
          And she forgotten in the quiet grave.                      550

            I speak," continued he, "of One whose stock
          Of virtues bloomed beneath this lonely roof.
          She was a Woman of a steady mind,
          Tender and deep in her excess of love;
          Not speaking much, pleased rather with the joy
          Of her own thoughts: by some especial care
          Her temper had been framed, as if to make
          A Being, who by adding love to peace
          Might live on earth a life of happiness.
          Her wedded Partner lacked not on his side                  560
          The humble worth that satisfied her heart:
          Frugal, affectionate, sober, and withal
          Keenly industrious. She with pride would tell
          That he was often seated at his loom,
          In summer, ere the mower was abroad
          Among the dewy grass,--in early spring,
          Ere the last star had vanished.--They who passed
          At evening, from behind the garden fence
          Might hear his busy spade, which he would ply,
          After his daily work, until the light                      570
          Had failed, and every leaf and flower were lost
          In the dark hedges. So their days were spent
          In peace and comfort; and a pretty boy
          Was their best hope, next to the God in heaven.

            Not twenty years ago, but you I think
          Can scarcely bear it now in mind, there came
          Two blighting seasons, when the fields were left
          With half a harvest. It pleased Heaven to add
          A worse affliction in the plague of war:
          This happy Land was stricken to the heart!                 580
          A Wanderer then among the cottages,
          I, with my freight of winter raiment, saw
          The hardships of that season: many rich
          Sank down, as in a dream, among the poor;
          And of the poor did many cease to be,
          And their place knew them not. Meanwhile, abridged
          Of daily comforts, gladly reconciled
          To numerous self-denials, Margaret
          Went struggling on through those calamitous years
          With cheerful hope, until the second autumn,               590
          When her life's Helpmate on a sick-bed lay,
          Smitten with perilous fever. In disease
          He lingered long; and, when his strength returned,
          He found the little he had stored, to meet
          The hour of accident or crippling age,
          Was all consumed. A second infant now
          Was added to the troubles of a time
          Laden, for them and all of their degree,
          With care and sorrow; shoals of artisans
          From ill-requited labour turned adrift                     600
          Sought daily bread from public charity,
          They, and their wives and children--happier far
          Could they have lived as do the little birds
          That peck along the hedge-rows, or the kite
          That makes her dwelling on the mountain rocks!

            A sad reverse it was for him who long
          Had filled with plenty, and possessed in peace,
          This lonely Cottage. At the door he stood,
          And whistled many a snatch of merry tunes
          That had no mirth in them; or with his knife               610
          Carved uncouth figures on the heads of sticks--
          Then, not less idly, sought, through every nook
          In house or garden, any casual work
          Of use or ornament; and with a strange,
          Amusing, yet uneasy, novelty,
          He mingled, where he might, the various tasks
          Of summer, autumn, winter, and of spring.
          But this endured not; his good humour soon
          Became a weight in which no pleasure was:
          And poverty brought on a petted mood                       620
          And a sore temper: day by day he drooped,
          And he would leave his work--and to the town
          Would turn without an errand his slack steps;
          Or wander here and there among the fields.
          One while he would speak lightly of his babes,
          And with a cruel tongue: at other times
          He tossed them with a false unnatural joy:
          And 'twas a rueful thing to see the looks
          Of the poor innocent children. 'Every smile,'
          Said Margaret to me, here beneath these trees,
          'Made my heart bleed.'"
                                   At this the Wanderer paused;      630
          And, looking up to those enormous elms,
          He said, "'Tis now the hour of deepest noon.
          At this still season of repose and peace,
          This hour when all things which are not at rest
          Are cheerful; while this multitude of flies
          With tuneful hum is filling all the air;
          Why should a tear be on an old Man's cheek?
          Why should we thus, with an untoward mind,
          And in the weakness of humanity,
          From natural wisdom turn our hearts away;                  640
          To natural comfort shut our eyes and ears;
          And, feeding on disquiet, thus disturb
          The calm of nature with our restless thoughts?"
                             _____________

          HE spake with somewhat of a solemn tone:
          But, when he ended, there was in his face
          Such easy cheerfulness, a look so mild,
          That for a little time it stole away
          All recollection; and that simple tale
          Passed from my mind like a forgotten sound.
          A while on trivial things we held discourse,               650
          To me soon tasteless. In my own despite,
          I thought of that poor Woman as of one
          Whom I had known and loved. He had rehearsed
          Her homely tale with such familiar power,
          With such an active countenance, an eye
          So busy, that the things of which he spake
          Seemed present; and, attention now relaxed,
          A heart-felt chillness crept along my veins.
          I rose; and, having left the breezy shade,
          Stood drinking comfort from the warmer sun,                660
          That had not cheered me long--ere, looking round
          Upon that tranquil Ruin, I returned,
          And begged of the old Man that, for my sake,
          He would resume his story.

                                      He replied,
          "It were a wantonness, and would demand
          Severe reproof, if we were men whose hearts
          Could hold vain dalliance with the misery
          Even of the dead; contented thence to draw
          A momentary pleasure, never marked
          By reason, barren of all future good.                      670
          But we have known that there is often found
          In mournful thoughts, and always might be found,
          A power to virtue friendly; were't not so,
          I am a dreamer among men, indeed
          An idle dreamer! 'Tis a common tale,
          An ordinary sorrow of man's life,
          A tale of silent suffering, hardly clothed
          In bodily form.--But without further bidding
          I will proceed.
                           While thus it fared with them,
          To whom this cottage, till those hapless years,            680
          Had been a blessed home, it was my chance
          To travel in a country far remote;
          And when these lofty elms once more appeared
          What pleasant expectations lured me on
          O'er the flat Common!--With quick step I reached
          The threshold, lifted with light hand the latch;
          But, when I entered, Margaret looked at me
          A little while; then turned her head away
          Speechless,--and, sitting down upon a chair,
          Wept bitterly. I wist not what to do,                      690
          Nor how to speak to her. Poor Wretch! at last
          She rose from off her seat, and then,--O Sir!
          I cannot 'tell' how she pronounced my name:--
          With fervent love, and with a face of grief
          Unutterably helpless, and a look
          That seemed to cling upon me, she enquired
          If I had seen her husband. As she spake
          A strange surprise and fear came to my heart,
          Nor had I power to answer ere she told
          That he had disappeared--not two months gone.              700
          He left his house: two wretched days had past,
          And on the third, as wistfully she raised
          Her head from off her pillow, to look forth,
          Like one in trouble, for returning light,
          Within her chamber-casement she espied
          A folded paper, lying as if placed
          To meet her waking eyes. This tremblingly
          She opened--found no writing, but beheld
          Pieces of money carefully enclosed,
          Silver and gold. 'I shuddered at the sight,'               710
          Said Margaret, 'for I knew it was his hand
          That must have placed it there; and ere that day
          Was ended, that long anxious day, I learned,
          From one who by my husband had been sent
          With the sad news, that he had joined a troop
          Of soldiers, going to a distant land.
          --He left me thus--he could not gather heart
          To take a farewell of me; for he feared
          That I should follow with my babes, and sink
          Beneath the misery of that wandering life.'                720

            This tale did Margaret tell with many tears:
          And, when she ended, I had little power
          To give her comfort, and was glad to take
          Such words of hope from her own mouth as served
          To cheer us both. But long we had not talked
          Ere we built up a pile of better thoughts,
          And with a brighter eye she looked around
          As if she had been shedding tears of joy.
          We parted.--'Twas the time of early spring;
          I left her busy with her garden tools;                     730
          And well remember, o'er that fence she looked,
          And, while I paced along the foot-way path,
          Called out, and sent a blessing after me,
          With tender cheerfulness, and with a voice
          That seemed the very sound of happy thoughts.

            I roved o'er many a hill and many a dale,
          With my accustomed load; in heat and cold,
          Through many a wood and many an open ground,
          In sunshine and in shade, in wet and fair,
          Drooping or blithe of heart, as might befall;              740
          My best companions now the driving winds,
          And now the 'trotting brooks' and whispering trees,
          And now the music of my own sad steps,
          With many a short-lived thought that passed between,
          And disappeared.
                            I journeyed back this way,
          When, in the warmth of midsummer, the wheat
          Was yellow; and the soft and bladed grass,
          Springing afresh, had o'er the hay-field spread
          Its tender verdure. At the door arrived,
          I found that she was absent. In the shade,                 750
          Where now we sit, I waited her return.
          Her cottage, then a cheerful object, wore
          Its customary look,--only, it seemed,
          The honeysuckle, crowding round the porch,
          Hung down in heavier tufts; and that bright weed,
          The yellow stone-crop, suffered to take root
  &nb

THE EXCURSION
BOOK SECOND
THE SOLITARY

          IN days of yore how fortunately fared
          The Minstrel! wandering on from hall to hall,
          Baronial court or royal; cheered with gifts
          Munificent, and love, and ladies' praise;
          Now meeting on his road an armed knight,
          Now resting with a pilgrim by the side
          Of a clear brook;--beneath an abbey's roof
          One evening sumptuously lodged; the next,
          Humbly in a religious hospital;
          Or with some merry outlaws of the wood;                     10
          Or haply shrouded in a hermit's cell.
          Him, sleeping or awake, the robber spared;
          He walked--protected from the sword of war
          By virtue of that sacred instrument
          His harp, suspended at the traveller's side;
          His dear companion wheresoe'er he went
          Opening from land to land an easy way
          By melody, and by the charm of verse.
          Yet not the noblest of that honoured Race
          Drew happier, loftier, more empassioned, thoughts           20
          From his long journeyings and eventful life,
          Than this obscure Itinerant had skill
          To gather, ranging through the tamer ground
          Of these our unimaginative days;
          Both while he trod the earth in humblest guise
          Accoutred with his burthen and his staff;
          And now, when free to move with lighter pace.

            What wonder, then, if I, whose favourite school
          Hath been the fields, the roads, and rural lanes,
          Looked on this guide with reverential love?                 30
          Each with the other pleased, we now pursued
          Our journey, under favourable skies.
          Turn wheresoe'er we would, he was a light
          Unfailing: not a hamlet could we pass,
          Rarely a house, that did not yield to him
          Remembrances; or from his tongue call forth
          Some way-beguiling tale. Nor less regard
          Accompanied those strains of apt discourse,
          Which nature's various objects might inspire;
          And in the silence of his face I read                       40
          His overflowing spirit. Birds and beasts,
          And the mute fish that glances in the stream,
          And harmless reptile coiling in the sun,
          And gorgeous insect hovering in the air,
          The fowl domestic, and the household dog--
          In his capacious mind, he loved them all:
          Their rights acknowledging he felt for all.
          Oft was occasion given me to perceive
          How the calm pleasures of the pasturing herd
          To happy contemplation soothed his walk;                    50
          How the poor brute's condition, forced to run
          Its course of suffering in the public road,
          Sad contrast! all too often smote his heart
          With unavailing pity. Rich in love
          And sweet humanity, he was, himself,
          To the degree that he desired, beloved.
          Smiles of good-will from faces that he knew
          Greeted us all day long; we took our seats
          By many a cottage-hearth, where he received
          The welcome of an Inmate from afar,                         60
          And I at once forgot, I was a Stranger.
          --Nor was he loth to enter ragged huts,
          Huts where his charity was blest; his voice
          Heard as the voice of an experienced friend.
          And, sometimes--where the poor man held dispute
          With his own mind, unable to subdue
          Impatience through inaptness to perceive
          General distress in his particular lot;
          Or cherishing resentment, or in vain
          Struggling against it; with a soul perplexed,               70
          And finding in herself no steady power
          To draw the line of comfort that divides
          Calamity, the chastisement of Heaven,
          From the injustice of our brother men--
          To him appeal was made as to a judge;
          Who, with an understanding heart, allayed
          The perturbation; listened to the plea;
          Resolved the dubious point; and sentence gave
          So grounded, so applied, that it was heard
          With softened spirit, even when it condemned.               80

            Such intercourse I witnessed, while we roved,
          Now as his choice directed, now as mine;
          Or both, with equal readiness of will,
          Our course submitting to the changeful breeze
          Of accident. But when the rising sun
          Had three times called us to renew our walk,
          My Fellow-traveller, with earnest voice,
          As if the thought were but a moment old,
          Claimed absolute dominion for the day.
          We started--and he led me toward the hills,                 90
          Up through an ample vale, with higher hills
          Before us, mountains stern and desolate;
          But, in the majesty of distance, now
          Set off, and to our ken appearing fair
          Of aspect, with aerial softness clad,
          And beautified with morning's purple beams.

            The wealthy, the luxurious, by the stress
          Of business roused, or pleasure, ere their time,
          May roll in chariots, or provoke the hoofs
          Of the fleet coursers they bestride, to raise              100
          From earth the dust of morning, slow to rise;
          And they, if blest with health and hearts at ease,
          Shall lack not their enjoyment:--but how faint
          Compared with ours! who, pacing side by side,
          Could, with an eye of leisure, look on all
          That we beheld; and lend the listening sense
          To every grateful sound of earth and air;
          Pausing at will--our spirits braced, our thoughts
          Pleasant as roses in the thickets blown,
          And pure as dew bathing their crimson leaves.              110

            Mount slowly, sun! that we may journey long,
          By this dark hill protected from thy beams!
          Such is the summer pilgrim's frequent wish;
          But quickly from among our morning thoughts
          'Twas chased away: for, toward the western side
          Of the broad vale, casting a casual glance,
          We saw a throng of people; wherefore met?
          Blithe notes of music, suddenly let loose
          On the thrilled ear, and flags uprising, yield
          Prompt answer; they proclaim the annual Wake,              120
          Which the bright season favours.--Tabor and pipe
          In purpose join to hasten or reprove
          The laggard Rustic; and repay with boons
          Of merriment a party-coloured knot,
          Already formed upon the village-green.
          --Beyond the limits of the shadow cast
          By the broad hill, glistened upon our sight
          That gay assemblage. Round them and above,
          Glitter, with dark recesses interposed,
          Casement, and cottage-roof, and stems of trees             130
          Half-veiled in vapoury cloud, the silver steam
          Of dews fast melting on their leafy boughs
          By the strong sunbeams smitten. Like a mast
          Of gold, the Maypole shines; as if the rays
          Of morning, aided by exhaling dew,
          With gladsome influence could re-animate
          The faded garlands dangling from its sides.

            Said I, "The music and the sprightly scene
          Invite us; shall we quit our road, and join
          These festive matins?"--He replied, "Not loth              140
          To linger I would here with you partake,
          Not one hour merely, but till evening's close,
          The simple pastimes of the day and place.
          By the fleet Racers, ere the sun be set,
          The turf of yon large pasture will be skimmed;
          There, too, the lusty Wrestlers shall contend:
          But know we not that he, who intermits
          The appointed task and duties of the day,
          Untunes full oft the pleasures of the day;
          Checking the finer spirits that refuse                     150
          To flow when purposes are lightly changed?
          A length of journey yet remains untraced:
          Let us proceed." Then, pointing with his staff
          Raised toward those craggy summits, his intent
          He thus imparted:--
                               "In a spot that lies
          Among yon mountain fastnesses concealed,
          You will receive, before the hour of noon,
          Good recompense, I hope, for this day's toil,
          From sight of One who lives secluded there,
          Lonesome and lost: of whom, and whose past life,           160
          (Not to forestall such knowledge as may be
          More faithfully collected from himself)
          This brief communication shall suffice.

            Though now sojourning there, he, like myself,
          Sprang from a stock of lowly parentage
          Among the wilds of Scotland, in a tract
          Where many a sheltered and well-tended plant,
          Bears, on the humblest ground of social life,
          Blossoms of piety and innocence.
          Such grateful promises his youth displayed:                170
          And, having shown in study forward zeal,
          He to the Ministry was duly called;
          And straight, incited by a curious mind
          Filled with vague hopes, he undertook the charge
          Of Chaplain to a military troop
          Cheered by the Highland bagpipe, as they marched
          In plaided vest,--his fellow-countrymen.
          This office filling, yet by native power
          And force of native inclination made
          An intellectual ruler in the haunts                        180
          Of social vanity, he walked the world,
          Gay, and affecting graceful gaiety;
          Lax, buoyant--less a pastor with his flock
          Than a soldier among soldiers--lived and roamed
          Where Fortune led:--and Fortune, who oft proves
          The careless wanderer's friend, to him made known
          A blooming Lady--a conspicuous flower,
          Admired for beauty, for her sweetness praised;
          Whom he had sensibility to love,
          Ambition to attempt, and skill to win.                     190

            For this fair Bride, most rich in gifts of mind,
          Nor sparingly endowed with worldly wealth,
          His office he relinquished; and retired
          From the world's notice to a rural home.
          Youth's season yet with him was scarcely past,
          And she was in youth's prime. How free their love,
          How full their joy! 'Till, pitiable doom!
          In the short course of one undreaded year
          Death blasted all. Death suddenly o'erthrew
          Two lovely Children--all that they possessed!              200
          The Mother followed:--miserably bare
          The one Survivor stood; he wept, he prayed
          For his dismissal, day and night, compelled
          To hold communion with the grave, and face
          With pain the regions of eternity.
          An uncomplaining apathy displaced
          This anguish; and, indifferent to delight,
          To aim and purpose, he consumed his days,
          To private interest dead, and public care.
          So lived he; so he might have died.
                                               But now,              210
          To the wide world's astonishment, appeared
          A glorious opening, the unlooked-for dawn,
          That promised everlasting joy to France!
          Her voice of social transport reached even him!
          He broke from his contracted bounds, repaired
          To the great City, an emporium then
          Of golden expectations, and receiving
          Freights every day from a new world of hope.
          Thither his popular talents he transferred;
          And, from the pulpit, zealously maintained                 220
          The cause of Christ and civil liberty,
          As one, and moving to one glorious end.
          Intoxicating service! I might say
          A happy service; for he was sincere
          As vanity and fondness for applause,
          And new and shapeless wishes, would allow.

            That righteous cause (such power hath freedom) bound,
          For one hostility, in friendly league,
          Ethereal natures and the worst of slaves;
          Was served by rival advocates that came                    230
          From regions opposite as heaven and hell.
          One courage seemed to animate them all:
          And, from the dazzling conquests daily gained
          By their united efforts, there arose
          A proud and most presumptuous confidence
          In the transcendent wisdom of the age,
          And her discernment; not alone in rights,
          And in the origin and bounds of power
          Social and temporal; but in laws divine,
          Deduced by reason, or to faith revealed.                   240
          An overweening trust was raised; and fear
          Cast out, alike of person and of thing.
          Plague from this union spread, whose subtle bane
          The strongest did not easily escape;
          And He, what wonder! took a mortal taint.
          How shall I trace the change, how bear to tell
          That he broke faith with them whom he had laid
          In earth's dark chambers, with a Christian's hope!
          An infidel contempt of holy writ
          Stole by degrees upon his mind; and hence                  250
          Life, like that Roman Janus, double-faced;
          Vilest hypocrisy--the laughing, gay
          Hypocrisy, not leagued with fear, but pride.
          Smooth words he had to wheedle simple souls;
          But, for disciples of the inner school,
          Old freedom was old servitude, and they
          The wisest whose opinions stooped the least
          To known restraints; and who most boldly drew
          Hopeful prognostications from a creed,
          That, in the light of false philosophy,                    260
          Spread like a halo round a misty moon,
          Widening its circle as the storms advance.

            His sacred function was at length renounced;
          And every day and every place enjoyed
          The unshackled layman's natural liberty;
          Speech, manners, morals, all without disguise.
          I do not wish to wrong him; though the course
          Of private life licentiously displayed
          Unhallowed actions--planted like a crown
          Upon the insolent aspiring brow                            270
          Of spurious notions--worn as open signs
          Of prejudice subdued--still he retained,
          'Mid much abasement, what he had received
          From nature, an intense and glowing mind.
          Wherefore, when humbled Liberty grew weak,
          And mortal sickness on her face appeared,
          He coloured objects to his own desire
          As with a lover's passion. Yet his moods
          Of pain were keen as those of better men,
          Nay keener, as his fortitude was less:                     280
          And he continued, when worse days were come,
          To deal about his sparkling eloquence,
          Struggling against the strange reverse with zeal
          That showed like happiness. But, in despite
          Of all this outside bravery, within,
          He neither felt encouragement nor hope:
          For moral dignity, and strength of mind,
          Were wanting; and simplicity of life;
          And reverence for himself; and, last and best,
          Confiding thoughts, through love and fear of Him           290
          Before whose sight the troubles of this world
          Are vain, as billows in a tossing sea.

            The glory of the times fading away--
          The splendour, which had given a festal air
          To self-importance, hallowed it, and veiled
          From his own sight--this gone, he forfeited
          All joy in human nature; was consumed,
          And vexed, and chafed, by levity and scorn,
          And fruitless indignation; galled by pride;
          Made desperate by contempt of men who throve               300
          Before his sight in power or fame, and won,
          Without desert, what he desired; weak men,
          Too weak even for his envy or his hate!
          Tormented thus, after a wandering course
          Of discontent, and inwardly opprest
          With malady--in part, I fear, provoked
          By weariness of life--he fixed his home,
          Or, rather say, sate down by very chance,
          Among these rugged hills; where now he dwells,
          And wastes the sad remainder of his hours,                 310
          Steeped in a self-indulging spleen, that wants not
          Its own voluptuousness;--on this resolved,
          With this content, that he will live and die
          Forgotten,--at safe distance from 'a world
          Not moving to his mind.'"
                                     These serious words
          Closed the preparatory notices
          That served my Fellow-traveller to beguile
          The way, while we advanced up that wide vale.
          Diverging now (as if his quest had been
          Some secret of the mountains, cavern, fall                 320
          Of water, or some lofty eminence,
          Renowned for splendid prospect far and wide)
          We scaled, without a track to ease our steps,
          A steep ascent; and reached a dreary plain,
          With a tumultuous waste of huge hill tops
          Before us; savage region! which I paced
          Dispirited: when, all at once, behold!
          Beneath our feet, a little lowly vale,
          A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high
          Among the mountains; even as if the spot                   330
          Had been from eldest time by wish of theirs
          So placed, to be shut out from all the world!
          Urn-like it was in shape, deep as an urn;
          With rocks encompassed, save that to the south
          Was one small opening, where a heath-clad ridge
          Supplied a boundary less abrupt and close;
          A quiet treeless nook, with two green fields,
          A liquid pool that glittered in the sun,
          And one bare dwelling; one abode, no more!
          It seemed the home of poverty and toil,                    340
          Though not of want: the little fields, made green
          By husbandry of many thrifty years,
          Paid cheerful tribute to the moorland house.
          --There crows the cock, single in his domain:
          The small birds find in spring no thicket there
          To shroud them; only from the neighbouring vales
          The cuckoo, straggling up to the hill tops,
          Shouteth faint tidings of some gladder place.

            Ah! what a sweet Recess, thought I, is here!
          Instantly throwing down my limbs at ease                   350
          Upon a bed of heath;--full many a spot
          Of hidden beauty have I chanced to espy
          Among the mountains; never one like this;
          So lonesome, and so perfectly secure;
          Not melancholy--no, for it is green,
          And bright, and fertile, furnished in itself
          With the few needful things that life requires.
          --In rugged arms how softly does it lie,
          How tenderly protected! Far and near
          We have an image of the pristine earth,                    360
          The planet in its nakedness: were this
          Man's only dwelling, sole appointed seat,
          First, last, and single, in the breathing world,
          It could not be more quiet; peace is here
          Or nowhere; days unruffled by the gale
          Of public news or private; years that pass
          Forgetfully; uncalled upon to pay
          The common penalties of mortal life,
          Sickness, or accident, or grief, or pain.

            On these and kindred thoughts intent I lay               370
          In silence musing by my Comrade's side,
          He also silent; when from out the heart
          Of that profound abyss a solemn voice,
          Or several voices in one solemn sound,
          Was heard ascending; mournful, deep, and slow
          The cadence, as of psalms--a funeral dirge!
          We listened, looking down upon the hut,
          But seeing no one: meanwhile from below
          The strain continued, spiritual as before;
          And now distinctly could I recognise                       380
          These words:--"Shall in the grave thy love be known,
          In death thy faithfulness?"--"God rest his soul!'
          Said the old man, abruptly breaking silence,--
          "He is departed, and finds peace at last!"

            This scarcely spoken, and those holy strains
          Not ceasing, forth appeared in view a band
          Of rustic persons, from behind the hut
          Bearing a coffin in the midst, with which
          They shaped their course along the sloping side
          Of that small valley, singing as they moved;               390
          A sober company and few, the men
          Bare-headed, and all decently attired!
          Some steps when they had thus advanced, the dirge
          Ended; and, from the stillness that ensued
          Recovering, to my Friend I said, "You spake,
          Methought, with apprehension that these rites
          Are paid to Him upon whose shy retreat
          This day we purposed to intrude.'--"I did so,
          But let us hence, that we may learn the truth:
          Perhaps it is not he but some one else                     400
          For whom this pious service is performed;
          Some other tenant of the solitude."

            So, to a steep and difficult descent
          Trusting ourselves, we wound from crag to crag,
          Where passage could be won; and, as the last
          Of the mute train, behind the heathy top
          Of that off-sloping outlet, disappeared,
          I, more impatient in my downward course,
          Had landed upon easy ground; and there
          Stood waiting for my Comrade. When behold                  410
          An object that enticed my steps aside!
          A narrow, winding, entry opened out
          Into a platform--that lay, sheepfold-wise,
          Enclosed between an upright mass of rock
          And one old moss-grown wall;--a cool recess,
          And fanciful! For where the rock and wall
          Met in an angle, hung a penthouse, framed
          By thrusting two rude staves into the wall
          And overlaying them with mountain sods;
          To weather-fend a little turf-built seat                   420
          Whereon a full-grown man might rest, nor dread
          The burning sunshine, or a transient shower;
          But the whole plainly wrought by children's hands!
          Whose skill had thronged the floor with a proud show
          Of baby-houses, curiously arranged;
          Nor wanting ornament of walks between,
          With mimic trees inserted in the turf,
          And gardens interposed. Pleased with the sight,
          I could not choose but beckon to my Guide,
          Who, entering, round him threw a careless glance,          430
          Impatient to pass on, when I exclaimed,
          "Lo! what is here?" and, stooping down, drew forth
          A book, that, in the midst of stones and moss
          And wreck of party-coloured earthen-ware,
          Aptly disposed, had lent its help to raise
          One of those petty structures. "His it must be!"
          Exclaimed the Wanderer, "cannot but be his,
          And he is gone!" The book, which in my hand
          Had opened of itself (for it was swoln
          With searching damp, and seemingly had lain                440
          To the injurious elements exposed
          From week to week,) I found to be a work
          In the French tongue, a Novel of Voltaire,
          His famous Optimist. "Unhappy Man!"
          Exclaimed my Friend: "here then has been to him
          Retreat within retreat, a sheltering-place
          Within how deep a shelter! He had fits,
          Even to the last, of genuine tenderness,
          And loved the haunts of children: here, no doubt,
          Pleasing and pleased, he shared their simple sports,       450
          Or sate companionless; and here the book,
          Left and forgotten in his careless way,
          Must by the cottage-children have been found:
          Heaven bless them, and their inconsiderate work!
          To what odd purpose have the darlings turned
          This sad memorial of their hapless friend!"

            "Me," said I, "most doth it surprise, to find
          Such book in such a place!"--"A book it is,"
          He answered, "to the Person suited well,
          Though little suited to surrounding things:                460
          'Tis strange, I grant; and stranger still had been
          To see the Man who owned it, dwelling here,
          With one poor shepherd, far from all the world!--
          Now, if our errand hath been thrown away,
          As from these intimations I forebode,
          Grieved shall I be--less for my sake than yours,
          And least of all for him who is no more."

            By this, the book was in the old Man's hand;
          And he continued, glancing on the leaves
          An eye of scorn:--"The lover," said he, "doomed            470
          To love when hope hath failed him--whom no depth
          Of privacy is deep enough to hide,
          Hath yet his bracelet or his lock of hair,
          And that is joy to him. When change of times
          Hath summoned kings to scaffolds, do but give
          The faithful servant, who must hide his head
          Henceforth in whatsoever nook he may,
          A kerchief sprinkled with his master's blood,
          And he too hath his comforter. How poor,
          Beyond all poverty how destitute,                          480
          Must that Man have been left, who, hither driven,
          Flying or seeking, could yet bring with him
          No dearer relique, and no better stay,
          Than this dull product of a scoffer's pen,
          Impure conceits discharging from a heart
          Hardened by impious pride!--I did not fear
          To tax you with this journey;"--mildly said
          My venerable Friend, as forth we stepped
          Into the presence of the cheerful light--
          "For I have knowledge that you do not shrink               490
          From moving spectacles;--but let us on."

            So speaking, on he went, and at the word
          I followed, till he made a sudden stand:
          For full in view, approaching through a gate
          That opened from the enclosure of green fields
          Into the rough uncultivated ground,
          Behold the Man whom he had fancied dead!
          I knew from his deportment, mien, and dress,
          That it could be no other; a pale face,
          A meagre person, tall, and in a garb                       500
          Not rustic--dull and faded like himself!
          He saw us not, though distant but few steps;
          For he was busy, dealing, from a store
          Upon a broad leaf carried, choicest strings
          Of red ripe currants; gift by which he strove,
          With intermixture of endearing words,
          To soothe a Child, who walked beside him, weeping
          As if disconsolate.--"They to the grave
          Are bearing him, my Little-one," he said,
          "To the dark pit; but he will feel no pain;                510
          His body is at rest, his soul in heaven."

            More might have followed--but my honoured Friend
          Broke in upon the Speaker with a frank
          And cordial greeting.--Vivid was the light
          That flashed and sparkled from the other's eyes;
          He was all fire: no shadow on his brow
          Remained, nor sign of sickness on his face.
          Hands joined he with his Visitant,--a grasp,
          An eager grasp; and many moments' space--
          When the first glow of pleasure was no more,               520
          And, of the sad appearance which at once
          Had vanished, much was come and coming back--
          An amicable smile retained the life
          Which it had unexpectedly received,
          Upon his hollow cheek. "How kind," he said,
          "Nor could your coming have been better timed;
          For this, you see, is in our narrow world
          A day of sorrow. I have here a charge"--
          And, speaking thus, he patted tenderly
          The sun-burnt forehead of the weeping child--              530
          "A little mourner, whom it is my task
          To comfort;--but how came ye?--if yon track
          (Which doth at once befriend us and betray)
          Conducted hither your most welcome feet,
          Ye could not miss the funeral train--they yet
          Have scarcely disappeared." "This blooming Child,"
          Said the old Man, "is of an age to weep
          At any grave or solemn spectacle,
          Inly distressed or overpowered with awe,
          He knows not wherefore;--but the boy today,                540
          Perhaps is shedding orphan's tears; you also
          Must have sustained a loss."--"The hand of Death,"
          He answered, "has been here; but could not well
          Have fallen more lightly, if it had not fallen
          Upon myself."--The other left these words
          Unnoticed, thus continuing--
                                        "From yon crag,
          Down whose steep sides we dropped into the vale,
          We heard the hymn they sang--a solemn sound
          Heard anywhere; but in a place like this
          'Tis more than human! Many precious rites                  550
          And customs of our rural ancestry
          Are gone, or stealing from us; this, I hope,
          Will last for ever. Oft on my way have I
          Stood still, though but a casual passenger,
          So much I felt the awfulness of life,
          In that one moment when the corse is lifted
          In silence, with a hush of decency;
          Then from the threshold moves with song of peace,
          And confidential yearnings, towards its home,
          Its final home on earth. What traveller--who--             560
          (How far soe'er a stranger) does not own
          The bond of brotherhood, when he sees them go,
          A mute procession on the houseless road;
          Or passing by some single tenement
          Or clustered dwellings, where again they raise
          The monitory voice? But most of all
          It touches, it confirms, and elevates,
          Then, when the body, soon to be consigned
          Ashes to ashes, dust bequeathed to dust,
          Is raised from the church-aisle, and forward borne         570
          Upon the shoulders of the next in love,
          The nearest in affection or in blood;
          Yea, by the very mourners who had knelt
          Beside the coffin, resting on its lid
          In silent grief their unuplifted heads,
          And heard meanwhile the Psalmist's mournful plaint,
          And that most awful scripture which declares
          We shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed!
          --Have I not seen--ye likewise may have seen--
          Son, husband, brothers--brothers side by side,             580
          And son and father also side by side,
          Rise from that posture:--and in concert move,
          On the green turf following the vested Priest,
          Four dear supporters of one senseless weight,
          From which they do not shrink, and under which
          They faint not, but advance towards the open grave
          Step after step--together, with their firm
          Unhidden faces: he that suffers most,
          He outwardly, and inwardly perhaps,
          The most serene, with most undaunted eye!--                590
          Oh! blest are they who live and die like these,
          Loved with such love, and with such sorrow mourned!"

            "That poor Man taken hence to-day," replied
          The Solitary, with a faint sarcastic smile
          Which did not please me, "must be deemed, I fear,
          Of the unblest; for he will surely sink
          Into his mother earth without such pomp
          Of grief, depart without occasion given
          By him for such array of fortitude.
          Full seventy winters hath he lived, and mark!              600
          This simple Child will mourn his one short hour,
          And I shall miss him: scanty tribute! yet,
          This wanting, he would leave the sight of men,
          If love were his sole claim upon their care,
          Like a ripe date which in the desert falls
          Without a hand to gather it."
                                         At this
          I interposed, though loth to speak, and said,
          "Can it be thus among so small a band
          As ye must needs be here? in such a place
          I would not willingly, methinks, lose sight                610
          Of a departing cloud."--"'Twas not for love"--
          Answered the sick Man with a careless voice--
          "That I came hither; neither have I found
          Among associates who have power of speech,
          Nor in such other converse as is here,
          Temptation so prevailing as to change
          That mood, or undermine my first resolve."
          Then, speaking in like careless sort, he said
          To my benign Companion,--"Pity 'tis
          That fortune did not guide you to this house               620
          A few days earlier; then would you have seen
          What stuff the Dwellers in a solitude,
          That seems by Nature hollowed out to be
          The seat and bosom of pure innocence,
          Are made of; an ungracious matter this!
          Which, for truth's sake, yet in remembrance too
          Of past discussions with this zealous friend
          And advocate of humble life, I now
          Will force upon his notice; undeterred
          By the example of his own pure course,                     630
          And that respect and deference which a soul
          May fairly claim, by niggard age enriched
          In what she most doth value, love of God
          And his frail creature Man;--but ye shall hear.
          I talk--and ye are standing in the sun
          Without refreshment!"
                                 Quickly had he spoken,
          And, with light steps still quicker than his words,
          Led toward the Cottage. Homely was the spot;
          And, to my feeling, ere we reached the door,
          Had almost a forbidding nakedness;                         640
          Less fair, I grant, even painfully less fair,
          Than it appeared when from the beetling rock
          We had looked down upon it. All within,
          As left by the departed company,
          Was silent; save the solitary clock
          That on mine ear ticked with a mournful sound.--
          Following our Guide we clomb the cottage-stairs
          And reached a small apartment dark and low,
          Which was no sooner entered than our Host
          Said gaily, "This is my domain, my cell,                   650
          My hermitage, my cabin, what you will--
          I love it better than a snail his house.
          But now ye shall be feasted with our best."

            So, with more ardour than an unripe girl
          Left one day mistress of her mother's stores,
          He went about his hospitable task.
          My eyes were busy, and my thoughts no less,
          And pleased I looked upon my grey-haired Friend,
          As if to thank him; he returned that look,
          Cheered, plainly, and yet serious. What a wreck            660
          Had we about us! scattered was the floor,
          And, in like sort, chair, window-seat, and shelf,
          With books, maps, fossils, withered plants and flowers,
          And tufts of mountain moss. Mechanic tools
          Lay intermixed with scraps of paper, some
          Scribbled with verse: a broken angling-rod
          And shattered telescope, together linked
          By cobwebs, stood within a dusty nook;
          And instruments of music, some half-made,
          Some in disgrace, hung dangling from the walls.            670
          But speedily the promise was fulfilled;
          A feast before us, and a courteous Host
          Inviting us in glee to sit and eat.
          A napkin, white as foam of that rough brook
          By which it had been bleached, o'erspread the board;
          And was itself half-covered with a store
          Of dainties,--oaten bread, curd, cheese, and cream;
          And cakes of butter curiously embossed,
          Butter that had imbibed from meadow-flowers
          A golden hue, delicate as their own                        680
          Faintly reflected in a lingering stream.
          Nor lacked, for more delight on that warm day,
          Our table, small parade of garden fruits,
          And whortle-berries from the mountain side.
          The Child, who long ere this had stilled his sobs,
          Was now a help to his late comforter,
          And moved, a willing Page, as he was bid,
          Ministering to our need.
                                    In genial mood,
          While at our pastoral banquet thus we sate
          Fronting the window of that little cell,                   690
          I could not, ever and anon, forbear
          To glance an upward look on two huge Peaks
          That from some other vale peered into this.
          "Those lusty twins," exclaimed our host, "if here
          It were your lot to dwell, would soon become
          Your prized companions.--Many are the notes
          Which, in his tuneful course, the wind draws forth
          From rocks, woods, caverns, heaths, and dashing shores;
          And well those lofty brethren bear their part
          In the wild concert--chiefly when the storm                700
          Rides high; then all the upper air they fill
          With roaring sound, that ceases not to flow,
          Like smoke, along the level of the blast,
          In mighty current; theirs, too, is the song
          Of stream and headlong flood that seldom fails;
          And, in the grim and breathless hour of noon,
          Methinks that I have heard them echo back
          The thunder's greeting. Nor have nature's laws
          Left them ungifted with a power to yield
          Music of finer tone; a harmony,                            710
          So do I call it, though it be the hand
          Of silence, though there be no voice;--the clouds,
          The mist, the shadows, light of golden suns,
          Motions of moonlight, all come thither--touch,
          And have an answer--thither come, and shape
          A language not unwelcome to sick hearts
          And idle spirits:--there the sun

THE EXCURSION
BOOK THIRD
DESPONDENCY

          A HUMMING BEE--a little tinkling rill--
          A pair of falcons wheeling on the wing,
          In clamorous agitation, round the crest
          Of a tall rock, their airy citadel--
          By each and all of these the pensive ear
          Was greeted, in the silence that ensued,
          When through the cottage-threshold we had passed,
          And, deep within that lonesome valley, stood
          Once more beneath the concave of a blue
          And cloudless sky.--Anon exclaimed our Host--               10
          Triumphantly dispersing with the taunt
          The shade of discontent which on his brow
          Had gathered,--"Ye have left my cell,--but see
          How Nature hems you in with friendly arms!
          And by her help ye are my prisoners still.
          But which way shall I lead you?--how contrive,
          In spot so parsimoniously endowed,
          That the brief hours, which yet remain, may reap
          Some recompense of knowledge or delight?"
          So saying, round he looked, as if perplexed;                20
          And, to remove those doubts, my grey-haired Friend
          Said--"Shall we take this pathway for our guide?--
          Upward it winds, as if, in summer heats,
          Its line had first been fashioned by the flock
          Seeking a place of refuge at the root
          Of yon black Yew-tree, whose protruded boughs
          Darken the silver bosom of the crag,
          From which she draws her meagre sustenance.
          There in commodious shelter may we rest.
          Or let us trace this streamlet to its source;               30
          Feebly it tinkles with an earthy sound,
          And a few steps may bring us to the spot
          Where, haply, crowned with flowerets and green herbs,
          The mountain infant to the sun comes forth,
          Like human life from darkness."--A quick turn
          Through a strait passage of encumbered ground,
          Proved that such hope was vain:--for now we stood
          Shut out from prospect of the open vale,
          And saw the water, that composed this rill,
          Descending, disembodied, and diffused                       40
          O'er the smooth surface of an ample crag,
          Lofty, and steep, and naked as a tower.
          All further progress here was barred;--And who,
          Thought I, if master of a vacant hour,
          Here would not linger, willingly detained?
          Whether to such wild objects he were led
          When copious rains have magnified the stream
          Into a loud and white-robed waterfall,
          Or introduced at this more quiet time.

            Upon a semicirque of turf-clad ground,                    50
          The hidden nook discovered to our view
          A mass of rock, resembling, as it lay
          Right at the foot of that moist precipice,
          A stranded ship, with keel upturned, that rests
          Fearless of winds and waves. Three several stones
          Stood near, of smaller size, and not unlike
          To monumental pillars: and, from these
          Some little space disjoined a pair were seen,
          That with united shoulders bore aloft
          A fragment, like an altar, flat and smooth:                 60
          Barren the tablet, yet thereon appeared
          A tall and shining holly, that had found
          A hospitable chink, and stood upright,
          As if inserted by some human hand
          In mockery, to wither in the sun,
          Or lay its beauty flat before a breeze,
          The first that entered. But no breeze did now
          Find entrance;--high or low appeared no trace
          Of motion, save the water that descended,
          Diffused adown that barrier of steep rock,                  70
          And softly creeping, like a breath of air,
          Such as is sometimes seen, and hardly seen,
          To brush the still breast of a crystal lake.

            "Behold a cabinet for sages built,
          Which kings might envy!"--Praise to this effect
          Broke from the happy old Man's reverend lip;
          Who to the Solitary turned, and said,
          "In sooth, with love's familiar privilege,
          You have decried the wealth which is your own.
          Among these rocks and stones, methinks, I see               80
          More than the heedless impress that belongs
          To lonely nature's casual work: they bear
          A semblance strange of power intelligent,
          And of design not wholly worn away.
          Boldest of plants that ever faced the wind,
          How gracefully that slender shrub looks forth
          From its fantastic birth-place! And I own,
          Some shadowy intimations haunt me here,
          That in these shows a chronicle survives
          Of purposes akin to those of Man,                           90
          But wrought with mightier arm than now prevails.
          --Voiceless the stream descends into the gulf
          With timid lapse;--and lo! while in this strait
          I stand--the chasm of sky above my head
          Is heaven's profoundest azure; no domain
          For fickle, short-lived clouds to occupy,
          Or to pass through; but rather an abyss
          In which the everlasting stars abide;
          And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt
          The curious eye to look for them by day.                   100
          --Hail Contemplation! from the stately towers,
          Reared by the industrious hand of human art
          To lift thee high above the misty air
          And turbulence of murmuring cities vast;
          From academic groves, that have for thee
          Been planted, hither come and find a lodge
          To which thou mayst resort for holier peace,--
          From whose calm centre thou, through height or depth,
          Mayst penetrate, wherever truth shall lead;
          Measuring through all degrees, until the scale             110
          Of time and conscious nature disappear,
          Lost in unsearchable eternity!"

            A pause ensued; and with minuter care
          We scanned the various features of the scene:
          And soon the Tenant of that lonely vale
          With courteous voice thus spake--
                                             "I should have grieved
          Hereafter, not escaping self-reproach,
          If from my poor retirement ye had gone
          Leaving this nook unvisited: but, in sooth,
          Your unexpected presence had so roused                     120
          My spirits, that they were bent on enterprise;
          And, like an ardent hunter, I forgot,
          Or, shall I say?--disdained, the game that lurks
          At my own door. The shapes before our eyes
          And their arrangement, doubtless must be deemed
          The sport of Nature, aided by blind Chance
          Rudely to mock the works of toiling Man.
          And hence, this upright shaft of unhewn stone,
          From Fancy, willing to set off her stores
          By sounding titles, hath acquired the name                 130
          Of Pompey's pillar; that I gravely style
          My Theban obelisk; and, there, behold
          A Druid cromlech!--thus I entertain
          The antiquarian humour, and am pleased
          To skim along the surfaces of things,
          Beguiling harmlessly the listless hours.
          But if the spirit be oppressed by sense
          Of instability, revolt, decay,
          And change, and emptiness, these freaks of Nature
          And her blind helper Chance, do 'then' suffice             140
          To quicken, and to aggravate--to feed
          Pity and scorn, and melancholy pride,
          Not less than that huge Pile (from some abyss
          Of mortal power unquestionably sprung)
          Whose hoary diadem of pendent rocks
          Confines the shrill-voiced whirlwind, round and round
          Eddying within its vast circumference,
          On Sarum's naked plain--than pyramid
          Of Egypt, unsubverted, undissolved--
          Or Syria's marble ruins towering high                      150
          Above the sandy desert, in the light
          Of sun or moon.--Forgive me, if I say
          That an appearance which hath raised your minds
          To an exalted pitch (the self-same cause
          Different effect producing) is for me
          Fraught rather with depression than delight,
          Though shame it were, could I not look around,
          By the reflection of your pleasure, pleased.
          Yet happier in my judgment, even than you
          With your bright transports fairly may be deemed,          160
          The wandering Herbalist,--who, clear alike
          From vain, and, that worse evil, vexing thoughts,
          Casts, if he ever chance to enter here,
          Upon these uncouth Forms a slight regard
          Of transitory interest, and peeps round
          For some rare floweret of the hills, or plant
          Of craggy fountain; what he hopes for wins,
          Or learns, at least, that 'tis not to be won:
          Then, keen and eager, as a fine-nosed hound,
          By soul-engrossing instinct driven along                   170
          Through wood or open field, the harmless Man
          Departs, intent upon his onward quest!--
          Nor is that Fellow-wanderer, so deem I,
          Less to be envied, (you may trace him oft
          By scars which his activity has left
          Beside our roads and pathways, though, thank Heaven!
          This covert nook reports not of his hand)
          He who with pocket-hammer smites the edge
          Of luckless rock or prominent stone, disguised
          In weather-stains or crusted o'er by Nature                180
          With her first growths, detaching by the stroke
          A chip or splinter--to resolve his doubts;
          And, with that ready answer satisfied,
          The substance classes by some barbarous name,
          And hurries on; or from the fragments picks
          His specimen, if but haply interveined
          With sparkling mineral, or should crystal cube
          Lurk in its cells--and thinks himself enriched,
          Wealthier, and doubtless wiser, than before!
          Intrusted safely each to his pursuit,                      190
          Earnest alike, let both from hill to hill
          Range; if it please them, speed from clime to clime;
          The mind is full--and free from pain their pastime."

            "Then," said I, interposing, "One is near,
          Who cannot but possess in your esteem
          Place worthier still of envy. May I name,
          Without offence, that fair-faced cottage-boy?
          Dame Nature's pupil of the lowest form,
          Youngest apprentice in the school of art!
          Him, as we entered from the open glen,                     200
          You might have noticed, busily engaged,
          Heart, soul, and hands,--in mending the defects
          Left in the fabric of a leaky dam
          Raised for enabling this penurious stream
          To turn a slender mill (that new-made plaything)
          For his delight--the happiest he of all!"

            "Far happiest," answered the desponding Man,
          "If such as now he is, he might remain!
          Ah! what avails imagination high
          Or question deep? what profits all that earth,             210
          Or heaven's blue vault, is suffered to put forth
          Of impulse or allurement, for the Soul
          To quit the beaten track of life, and soar
          Far as she finds a yielding element
          In past or future; far as she can go
          Through time or space--if neither in the one,
          Nor in the other region, nor in aught
          That Fancy, dreaming o'er the map of things,
          Hath placed beyond these penetrable bounds,
          Words of assurance can be heard; if nowhere                220
          A habitation, for consummate good,
          Or for progressive virtue, by the search
          Can be attained,--a better sanctuary
          From doubt and sorrow, than the senseless grave?"

            "Is this," the grey-haired Wanderer mildly said,
          "The voice, which we so lately overheard,
          To that same child, addressing tenderly
          The consolations of a hopeful mind?
          'His body is at rest, his soul in heaven.'
          These were your words; and, verily, methinks               230
          Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop
          Than when we soar."--
                                 The Other, not displeased,
          Promptly replied--"My notion is the same.
          And I, without reluctance, could decline
          All act of inquisition whence we rise,
          And what, when breath hath ceased, we may become.
          Here are we, in a bright and breathing world.
          Our origin, what matters it? In lack
          Of worthier explanation, say at once
          With the American (a thought which suits                   240
          The place where now we stand) that certain men
          Leapt out together from a rocky cave;
          And these were the first parents of mankind:
          Or, if a different image be recalled
          By the warm sunshine, and the jocund voice
          Of insects chirping out their careless lives
          On these soft beds of thyme-besprinkled turf,
          Choose, with the gay Athenian, a conceit
          As sound--blithe race! whose mantles were bedecked
          With golden grasshoppers, in sign that they                250
          Had sprung, like those bright creatures, from the soil
          Whereon their endless generations dwelt.
          But stop!--these theoretic fancies jar
          On serious minds: then, as the Hindoos draw
          Their holy Ganges from a skiey fount,
          Even so deduce the stream of human life
          From seats of power divine; and hope, or trust,
          That our existence winds her stately course
          Beneath the sun, like Ganges, to make part
          Of a living ocean; or, to sink engulfed,                   260
          Like Niger, in impenetrable sands
          And utter darkness: thought which may be faced,
          Though comfortless!--
                                 Not of myself I speak;
          Such acquiescence neither doth imply,
          In me, a meekly-bending spirit soothed
          By natural piety; nor a lofty mind,
          By philosophic discipline prepared
          For calm subjection to acknowledged law;
          Pleased to have been, contented not to be.
          Such palms I boast not;--no! to me, who find               270
          Reviewing my past way, much to condemn,
          Little to praise, and nothing to regret,
          (Save some remembrances of dream-like joys
          That scarcely seem to have belonged to me)
          If I must take my choice between the pair
          That rule alternately the weary hours,
          Night is than day more acceptable; sleep
          Doth, in my estimate of good, appear
          A better state than waking; death than sleep:
          Feelingly sweet is stillness after storm,                  280
          Though under covert of the wormy ground!

            Yet be it said, in justice to myself,
          That in more genial times, when I was free
          To explore the destiny of human kind
          (Not as an intellectual game pursued
          With curious subtilty, from wish to cheat
          Irksome sensations; but by love of truth
          Urged on, or haply by intense delight
          In feeding thought, wherever thought could feed)
          I did not rank with those (too dull or nice,               290
          For to my judgment such they then appeared,
          Or too aspiring, thankless at the best)
          Who, in this frame of human life, perceive
          An object whereunto their souls are tied
          In discontented wedlock; nor did e'er,
          From me, those dark impervious shades, that hang
          Upon the region whither we are bound,
          Exclude a power to enjoy the vital beams
          Of present sunshine.--Deities that float
          On wings, angelic Spirits! I could muse                    300
          O'er what from eldest time we have been told
          Of your bright forms and glorious faculties,
          And with the imagination rest content,
          Not wishing more; repining not to tread
          The little sinuous path of earthly care,
          By flowers embellished, and by springs refreshed.
          --'Blow winds of autumn!--let your chilling breath
          'Take the live herbage from the mead, and strip
          'The shady forest of its green attire,--
          'And let the bursting clouds to fury rouse                 310
          'The gentle brooks!--Your desolating sway,
          'Sheds,' I exclaimed, 'no sadness upon me,
          'And no disorder in your rage I find.
          'What dignity, what beauty, in this change
          'From mild to angry, and from sad to gay,
          'Alternate and revolving! How benign,
          'How rich in animation and delight,
          'How bountiful these elements--compared
          'With aught, as more desirable and fair,
          'Devised by fancy for the golden age;                      320
          'Or the perpetual warbling that prevails
          'In Arcady, beneath unaltered skies,
          'Through the long year in constant quiet bound,
          'Night hushed as night, and day serene as day!'
          --But why this tedious record?--Age, we know
          Is garrulous; and solitude is apt
          To anticipate the privilege of Age,
          From far ye come; and surely with a hope
          Of better entertainment:--let us hence!"

            Loth to forsake the spot, and still more loth            330
          To be diverted from our present theme,
          I said, "My thoughts, agreeing, Sir, with yours,
          Would push this censure farther;--for, if smiles
          Of scornful pity be the just reward
          Of Poesy thus courteously employed
          In framing models to improve the scheme
          Of Man's existence, and recast the world,
          Why should not grave Philosophy be styled,
          Herself, a dreamer of a kindred stock,
          A dreamer yet more spiritless and dull?                    340
          Yes, shall the fine immunities she boasts
          Establish sounder titles of esteem
          For her, who (all too timid and reserved
          For onset, for resistance too inert,
          Too weak for suffering, and for hope too tame)
          Placed, among flowery gardens curtained round
          With world-excluding groves, the brotherhood
          Of soft Epicureans, taught--if they
          The ends of being would secure, and win
          The crown of wisdom--to yield up their souls               350
          To a voluptuous unconcern, preferring
          Tranquillity to all things. Or is she,"
          I cried, "more worthy of regard, the Power,
          Who, for the sake of sterner quiet, closed
          The Stoic's heart against the vain approach
          Of admiration, and all sense of joy?"

            His countenance gave notice that my zeal
          Accorded little with his present mind;
          I ceased, and he resumed.--"Ah! gentle Sir,
          Slight, if you will, the 'means'; but spare to slight      360
          The 'end' of those, who did, by system, rank,
          As the prime object of a wise man's aim,
          Security from shock of accident,
          Release from fear; and cherished peaceful days
          For their own sakes, as mortal life's chief good,
          And only reasonable felicity.
          What motive drew, what impulse, I would ask,
          Through a long course of later ages, drove,
          The hermit to his cell in forest wide;
          Or what detained him, till his closing eyes                370
          Took their last farewell of the sun and stars,
          Fast anchored in the desert?--Not alone
          Dread of the persecuting sword, remorse,
          Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged
          And unavengeable, defeated pride,
          Prosperity subverted, maddening want,
          Friendship betrayed, affection unreturned,
          Love with despair, or grief in agony;--
          Not always from intolerable pangs
          He fled; but, compassed round by pleasure, sighed          380
          For independent happiness; craving peace,
          The central feeling of all happiness,
          Not as a refuge from distress or pain,
          A breathing-time, vacation, or a truce,
          But for its absolute self; a life of peace,
          Stability without regret or fear;
          That hath been, is, and shall be evermore!--
          Such the reward he sought; and wore out life,
          There, where on few external things his heart
          Was set, and those his own; or, if not his,                390
          Subsisting under nature's stedfast law.

            What other yearning was the master tie
          Of the monastic brotherhood, upon rock
          Aerial, or in green secluded vale,
          One after one, collected from afar,
          An undissolving fellowship?--What but this,
          The universal instinct of repose,
          The longing for confirmed tranquillity,
          Inward and outward; humble, yet sublime:
          The life where hope and memory are as one;                 400
          Where earth is quiet and her face unchanged
          Save by the simplest toil of human hands
          Or seasons' difference; the immortal Soul
          Consistent in self-rule; and heaven revealed
          To meditation in that quietness!--
          Such was their scheme: and though the wished-for end
          By multitudes was missed, perhaps attained
          By none, they for the attempt, and pains employed,
          Do, in my present censure, stand redeemed
          From the unqualified disdain, that once                    410
          Would have been cast upon them by my voice
          Delivering her decisions from the seat
          Of forward youth--that scruples not to solve
          Doubts, and determine questions, by the rules
          Of inexperienced judgment, ever prone
          To overweening faith; and is inflamed,
          By courage, to demand from real life
          The test of act and suffering, to provoke
          Hostility--how dreadful when it comes,
          Whether affliction be the foe, or guilt!                   420

            A child of earth, I rested, in that stage
          Of my past course to which these thoughts advert,
          Upon earth's native energies; forgetting
          That mine was a condition which required
          Nor energy, nor fortitude--a calm
          Without vicissitude; which, if the like
          Had been presented to my view elsewhere,
          I might have even been tempted to despise.
          But no--for the serene was also bright;
          Enlivened happiness with joy o'erflowing,                  430
          With joy, and--oh! that memory should survive
          To speak the word--with rapture! Nature's boon,
          Life's genuine inspiration, happiness
          Above what rules can teach, or fancy feign;
          Abused, as all possessions 'are' abused
          That are not prized according to their worth.
          And yet, what worth? what good is given to men,
          More solid than the gilded clouds of heaven?
          What joy more lasting than a vernal flower?--
          None! 'tis the general plaint of human kind                440
          In solitude: and mutually addressed
          From each to all, for wisdom's sake:--This truth
          The priest announces from his holy seat:
          And, crowned with garlands in the summer grove,
          The poet fits it to his pensive lyre.
          Yet, ere that final resting-place be gained,
          Sharp contradictions may arise, by doom
          Of this same life, compelling us to grieve
          That the prosperities of love and joy
          Should be permitted, oft-times, to endure                  450
          So long, and be at once cast down for ever.
          Oh! tremble, ye, to whom hath been assigned
          A course of days composing happy months,
          And they as happy years; the present still
          So like the past, and both so firm a pledge
          Of a congenial future, that the wheels
          Of pleasure move without the aid of hope:
          For Mutability is Nature's bane;
          And slighted Hope 'will' be avenged; and, when
          Ye need her favours, ye shall find her not;                460
          But in her stead--fear--doubt--and agony!"

            This was the bitter language of the heart:
          But, while he spake, look, gesture, tone of voice,
          Though discomposed and vehement, were such
          As skill and graceful nature might suggest
          To a proficient of the tragic scene
          Standing before the multitude, beset
          With dark events. Desirous to divert
          Or stem the current of the speaker's thoughts,
          We signified a wish to leave that place                    470
          Of stillness and close privacy, a nook
          That seemed for self-examination made;
          Or, for confession, in the sinner's need,
          Hidden from all men's view. To our attempt
          He yielded not; but, pointing to a slope
          Of mossy turf defended from the sun,
          And on that couch inviting us to rest,
          Full on that tender-hearted Man he turned
          A serious eye, and his speech thus renewed.

            "You never saw, your eyes did never look                 480
          On the bright form of Her whom once I loved:--
          Her silver voice was heard upon the earth,
          A sound unknown to you; else, honoured Friend!
          Your heart had borne a pitiable share
          Of what I suffered, when I wept that loss,
          And suffer now, not seldom, from the thought
          That I remember, and can weep no more.--
          Stripped as I am of all the golden fruit
          Of self-esteem; and by the cutting blasts
          Of self-reproach familiarly assailed;                      490
          Yet would I not be of such wintry bareness
          But that some leaf of your regard should hang
          Upon my naked branches:--lively thoughts
          Give birth, full often, to unguarded words;
          I grieve that, in your presence, from my tongue
          Too much of frailty hath already dropped;
          But that too much demands still more.
                                                 You know,
          Revered Compatriot--and to you, kind Sir,
          (Not to be deemed a stranger, as you come
          Following the guidance of these welcome feet               500
          To our secluded vale) it may be told--
          That my demerits did not sue in vain
          To One on whose mild radiance many gazed
          With hope, and all with pleasure. This fair Bride--
          In the devotedness of youthful love,
          Preferring me to parents, and the choir
          Of gay companions, to the natal roof,
          And all known places and familiar sights
          (Resigned with sadness gently weighing down
          Her trembling expectations, but no more                    510
          Than did to her due honour, and to me
          Yielded, that day, a confidence sublime
          In what I had to build upon)--this Bride,
          Young, modest, meek, and beautiful, I led
          To a low cottage in a sunny bay,
          Where the salt sea innocuously breaks,
          And the sea breeze as innocently breathes,
          On Devon's leafy shores;--a sheltered hold,
          In a soft clime encouraging the soil
          To a luxuriant bounty!--As our steps                       520
          Approach the embowered abode--our chosen seat--
          See, rooted in the earth, her kindly bed,
          The unendangered myrtle, decked with flowers,
          Before the threshold stands to welcome us!
          While, in the flowering myrtle's neighbourhood,
          Not overlooked but courting no regard,
          Those native plants, the holly and the yew,
          Gave modest intimation to the mind
          How willingly their aid they would unite
          With the green myrtle, to endear the hours                 530
          Of winter, and protect that pleasant place.
          --Wild were the walks upon those lonely Downs,
          Track leading into track; how marked, how worn
          Into bright verdure, between fern and gorse
          Winding away its never-ending line
          On their smooth surface, evidence was none;
          But, there, lay open to our daily haunt,
          A range of unappropriated earth,
          Where youth's ambitious feet might move at large;
          Whence, unmolested wanderers, we beheld                    540
          The shining giver of the day diffuse
          His brightness o'er a tract of sea and land
          Gay as our spirits, free as our desires;
          As our enjoyments, boundless.--From those heights
          We dropped, at pleasure, into sylvan combs;
          Where arbours of impenetrable shade,
          And mossy seats, detained us side by side,
          With hearts at ease, and knowledge in our hearts
          'That all the grove and all the day was ours.'

            O happy time! still happier was at hand;                 550
          For Nature called my Partner to resign
          Her share in the pure freedom of that life,
          Enjoyed by us in common.--To my hope,
          To my heart's wish, my tender Mate became
          The thankful captive of maternal bonds;
          And those wild paths were left to me alone.
          There could I meditate on follies past;
          And, like a weary voyager escaped
          From risk and hardship, inwardly retrace
          A course of vain delights and thoughtless guilt,           560
          And self-indulgence--without shame pursued.
          There, undisturbed, could think of and could thank
          Her whose submissive spirit was to me
          Rule and restraint--my guardian--shall I say
          That earthly Providence, whose guiding love
          Within a port of rest had lodged me safe;
          Safe from temptation, and from danger far?
          Strains followed of acknowledgment addressed
          To an authority enthroned above
          The reach of sight; from whom, as from their source        570
          Proceed all visible ministers of good
          That walk the earth--Father of heaven and earth,
          Father, and king, and judge, adored and feared!
          These acts of mind, and memory, and heart,
          And spirit--interrupted and relieved
          By observations transient as the glance
          Of flying sunbeams, or to the outward form
          Cleaving with power inherent and intense,
          As the mute insect fixed upon the plant
          On whose soft leaves it hangs, and from whose cup          580
          It draws its nourishment imperceptibly--
          Endeared my wanderings; and the mother's kiss
          And infant's smile awaited my return.

            In privacy we dwelt, a wedded pair,
          Companions daily, often all day long;
          Not placed by fortune within easy reach
          Of various intercourse, nor wishing aught
          Beyond the allowance of our own fire-side,
          The twain within our happy cottage born,
          Inmates, and heirs of our united love;                     590
          Graced mutually by difference of sex,
          And with no wider interval of time
          Between their several births than served for one
          To establish something of a leader's sway;
          Yet left them joined by sympathy in age;
          Equals in pleasure, fellows in pursuit.
          On these two pillars rested as in air
          Our solitude.
                         It soothes me to perceive,
          Your courtesy withholds not from my words
          Attentive audience. But, oh! gentle Friends,               600
          As times of quiet and unbroken peace,
          Though, for a nation, times of blessedness,
          Give back faint echoes from the historian's page;
          So, in the imperfect sounds of this discourse,
          Depressed I hear, how faithless is the voice
          Which those most blissful days reverberate.
          What special record can, or need, be given
          To rules and habits, whereby much was done,
          But all within the sphere of little things;
          Of humble, though, to us, important cares,                 610
          And precious interests? Smoothly did our life
          Advance, swerving not from the path prescribed;
          Her annual, her diurnal, round alike!
          Maintained with faithful care. And you divine
          The worst effects that our condition saw
          If you imagine changes slowly wrought,
          And in their progress unperceivable;
          Not wished for; sometimes noticed with a sigh,
          (Whate'er of good or lovely they might bring)
          Sighs of regret, for the familiar good                     620
          And loveliness endeared which they removed.

            Seven years of occupation undisturbed
          Established seemingly a right to hold
          That happiness; and use and habit gave,
          To what an alien spirit had acquired,
          A patrimonial sanctity. And thus,
          With thoughts and wishes bounded to this world,
          I lived and breathed; most grateful--if to enjoy
          Without repining or desire for more,
          For different lot, or change to higher sphere,             630
          (Only except some impulses of pride
          With no determined object, though upheld
          By theories with suitable support)--
          Most grateful, if in such wise to enjoy
          Be proof of gratitude for what we have;
          Else, I allow, most thankless.--But, at once,
          From some dark seat of fatal power was urged
          A claim that shattered all.--Our blooming girl,
          Caught in the gripe of death, with such brief time
          To struggle in as scarcely would allow                     640
          Her cheek to change its colour, was conveyed
          From us to inaccessible worlds, to regions
          Where height, or depth, admits not the approach
          Of living man, though longing to pursue.
          --With even as brief a warning--and how soon,
          With what short interval of time between,
          I tremble yet to think of--our last prop,
          Our happy life's only remaining stay--
          The brother followed; and was seen no more!

            Calm as a frozen lake when ruthless winds                650
          Blow fiercely, agitating earth and sky,
          The Mother now remained; as if in her,
          Who, to the lowest region of the soul,
          Had been erewhile unsettled and disturbed,
          This second visitation had no power
          To shake; but only to bind up and seal;
          And to establish thankfulness of heart
          In Heaven's determinations, ever just.
          The eminence whereon her spirit stood,
          Mine was unable to attain. Immense                         660
          The space that severed us! But, as the sight
          Communicates with heaven's ethereal orbs
          Incalculably distant; so, I felt
          That consolation may descend from far
          (And that is intercourse, and union, too,)
          While, overcome with speechless gratitude,
          And, with a holier love inspired, I looked
          On her--at once superior to my woes
          And partner of my loss.--O heavy change,
          Dimness o'er this clear luminary crept                     670
          Insensibly;--the immortal and divine
          Yielded to mortal reflux; her pure glory,
          As from the pinnacle of worldly state
          Wretched ambition drops astounded, fell
          Into a gulf obscure of silent grief,
          And keen heart-anguish--of itself ashamed,
          Yet obstinately cherishing itself:
          And, so consumed, she melted from my arms;
          And left me, on this earth, disconsolate!

            What followed cannot be reviewed in thought;             680
          Much less, retraced in words. If she, of life
          Blameless, so intimate with love and joy
          And all the tender motions of the soul,
          Had been supplanted, could I hope to stand--
          Infirm, dependent, and now destitute?
          I called on dreams and visions, to disclose
          That which is veiled from waking thought; conjured
          Eternity, as men constrain a ghost
          To appear and answer; to the grave I spake
          Imploringly;--looked up, and asked the Heavens             690
          If Angels traversed their cerulean floors,
          If fixed or wandering star could tidings yield
          Of the departed spirit--what abode
          It occupies--what consciousness retains
          Of former loves and interests. Then my soul
          Turned inward,--to examine of what stuff
          Time's fetters are composed; and life was put
          To inquisition, long and profitless!
          By pain of heart--now checked--and now impelled--
          The intellectual power, through words and things,          700
          Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!
          And from those transports, and these toils abstruse,
          Some trace am I enabled to retain
          Of time, else lost;--existing unto me
          Only by records in myself not found.

            From that abstraction I was roused,--and how?
          Even as a thoughtful shepherd by a flash
          Of lightning startled in a gloomy cave
          Of these wild hills. For, lo! the dread Bastile,
          With all the chambers in its horrid towers,                710
          Fell to the ground:--by violence overthrown
          Of indignation; and with shouts that drowned
          The crash it made in falling! From the wreck
          A golden palace rose, or seemed to rise,
          The appointed seat of equitable law
          And mild paternal sway. The potent shock
          I felt: the transformation I perceived,
          As marvellously seized as in that moment
          When, from the blind mist issuing, I beheld
          Glory--beyond all glory ever seen,                         720
          Confusion infinite of heaven and earth,
          Dazzling the soul. Meanwhile, prophetic harps
          In every grove were ringing, 'War shall cease;
          'Did ye not hear that conquest is abjured?
          'Bring garlands, bring forth choicest flowers, to deck
&n

THE EXCURSION
BOOK FOURTH
DESPONDENCY CORRECTED

          HERE closed the Tenant of that lonely vale
          His mournful narrative--commenced in pain,
          In pain commenced, and ended without peace:
          Yet tempered, not unfrequently, with strains
          Of native feeling, grateful to our minds;
          And yielding surely some relief to his,
          While we sate listening with compassion due.
          A pause of silence followed; then, with voice
          That did not falter though the heart was moved,
          The Wanderer said:--
                                "One adequate support                 10
          For the calamities of mortal life
          Exists--one only; an assured belief
          That the procession of our fate, howe'er
          Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
          Of infinite benevolence and power;
          Whose everlasting purposes embrace
          All accidents, converting them to good.
          --The darts of anguish 'fix' not where the seat
          Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified
          By acquiescence in the Will supreme                         20
          For time and for eternity; by faith,
          Faith absolute in God, including hope,
          And the defence that lies in boundless love
          Of his perfections; with habitual dread
          Of aught unworthily conceived, endured
          Impatiently, ill-done, or left undone,
          To the dishonour of his holy name.
          Soul of our Souls, and safeguard of the world!
          Sustain, thou only canst, the sick of heart;
          Restore their languid spirits, and recall                   30
          Their lost affections unto thee and thine!"

            Then, as we issued from that covert nook,
          He thus continued, lifting up his eyes
          To heaven:--"How beautiful this dome of sky;
          And the vast hills, in fluctuation fixed
          At thy command, how awful! Shall the Soul,
          Human and rational, report of thee
          Even less than these?--Be mute who will, who can,
          Yet I will praise thee with impassioned voice:
          My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd,                 40
          Cannot forget thee here; where thou hast built,
          For thy own glory, in the wilderness!
          Me didst thou constitute a priest of thine,
          In such a temple as we now behold
          Reared for thy presence: therefore, am I bound
          To worship, here, and everywhere--as one
          Not doomed to ignorance, though forced to tread,
          From childhood up, the ways of poverty;
          From unreflecting ignorance preserved,
          And from debasement rescued.--By thy grace                  50
          The particle divine remained unquenched;
          And, 'mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil,
          Thy bounty caused to flourish deathless flowers,
          From paradise transplanted: wintry age
          Impends; the frost will gather round my heart;
          If the flowers wither, I am worse than dead!
          --Come, labour, when the worn-out frame requires
          Perpetual sabbath; come, disease and want;
          And sad exclusion through decay of sense;
          But leave me unabated trust in thee--                       60
          And let thy favour, to the end of life,
          Inspire me with ability to seek
          Repose and hope among eternal things--
          Father of heaven and earth! and I am rich,
          And will possess my portion in content!

            And what are things eternal?--powers depart,"
          The grey-haired Wanderer stedfastly replied,
          Answering the question which himself had asked,
          "Possessions vanish, and opinions change,
          And passions hold a fluctuating seat:                       70
          But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,
          And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,
          Duty exists;--immutably survive,
          For our support, the measures and the forms,
          Which an abstract intelligence supplies;
          Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not.
          Of other converse which mind, soul, and heart,
          Do, with united urgency, require,
          What more that may not perish?--Thou, dread source,
          Prime, self-existing cause and end of all                   80
          That in the scale of being fill their place;
          Above our human region, or below,
          Set and sustained;--thou, who didst wrap the cloud
          Of infancy around us, that thyself,
          Therein, with our simplicity awhile
          Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed;
          Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
          Or from its death-like void, with punctual care,
          And touch as gentle as the morning light,
          Restor'st us, daily, to the powers of sense                 90
          And reason's stedfast rule--thou, thou alone
          Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits,
          Which thou includest, as the sea her waves:
          For adoration thou endur'st; endure
          For consciousness the motions of thy will;
          For apprehension those transcendent truths
          Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws
          (Submission constituting strength and power)
          Even to thy Being's infinite majesty!
          This universe shall pass away--a work                      100
          Glorious! because the shadow of thy might,
          A step, or link, for intercourse with thee.
          Ah! if the time must come, in which my feet
          No more shall stray where meditation leads,
          By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,
          Loved haunts like these; the unimprisoned Mind
          May yet have scope to range among her own,
          Her thoughts, her images, her high desires.
          If the dear faculty of sight should fail,
          Still, it may be allowed me to remember                    110
          What visionary powers of eye and soul
          In youth were mine; when, stationed on the top
          Of some huge hill--expectant, I beheld
          The sun rise up, from distant climes returned
          Darkness to chase, and sleep; and bring the day
          His bounteous gift! or saw him toward the deep
          Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds
          Attended; then, my spirit was entranced
          With joy exalted to beatitude;
          The measure of my soul was filled with bliss,              120
          And holiest love; as earth, sea, air, with light,
          With pomp, with glory, with magnificence!

            Those fervent raptures are for ever flown;
          And, since their date, my soul hath undergone
          Change manifold, for better or for worse:
          Yet cease I not to struggle, and aspire
          Heavenward; and chide the part of me that flags,
          Through sinful choice; or dread necessity
          On human nature from above imposed.
          'Tis, by comparison, an easy task                          130
          Earth to despise; but, to converse with heaven--
          This is not easy:--to relinquish all
          We have, or hope, of happiness and joy,
          And stand in freedom loosened from this world,
          I deem not arduous; but must needs confess
          That 'tis a thing impossible to frame
          Conceptions equal to the soul's desires;
          And the most difficult of tasks to 'keep'
          Heights which the soul is competent to gain.
          --Man is of dust: ethereal hopes are his,                  140
          Which, when they should sustain themselves aloft,
          Want due consistence; like a pillar of smoke,
          That with majestic energy from earth
          Rises; but, having reached the thinner air,
          Melts, and dissolves, and is no longer seen.
          From this infirmity of mortal kind
          Sorrow proceeds, which else were not; at least,
          If grief be something hallowed and ordained,
          If, in proportion, it be just and meet,
          Yet, through this weakness of the general heart,           150
          Is it enabled to maintain its hold
          In that excess which conscience disapproves.
          For who could sink and settle to that point
          Of selfishness; so senseless who could be
          As long and perseveringly to mourn
          For any object of his love, removed
          From this unstable world, if he could fix
          A satisfying view upon that state
          Of pure, imperishable, blessedness,
          Which reason promises, and holy writ                       160
          Ensures to all believers?--Yet mistrust
          Is of such incapacity, methinks,
          No natural branch; despondency far less;
          And, least of all, is absolute despair.
          --And, if there be whose tender frames have drooped
          Even to the dust; apparently, through weight
          Of anguish unrelieved, and lack of power
          An agonizing sorrow to transmute;
          Deem not that proof is here of hope withheld
          When wanted most; a confidence impaired                    170
          So pitiably, that, having ceased to see
          With bodily eyes, they are borne down by love
          Of what is lost, and perish through regret.
          Oh! no, the innocent Sufferer often sees
          Too clearly; feels too vividly; and longs
          To realize the vision, with intense
          And over-constant yearning,--there--there lies
          The excess, by which the balance is destroyed.
          Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh,
          This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs,             180
          Though inconceivably endowed, too dim
          For any passion of the soul that leads
          To ecstasy; and, all the crooked paths
          Of time and change disdaining, takes its course
          Along the line of limitless desires.
          I, speaking now from such disorder free,
          Nor rapt, nor craving, but in settled peace,
          I cannot doubt that they whom you deplore
          Are glorified; or, if they sleep, shall wake
          From sleep, and dwell with God in endless love.            190
          Hope, below this, consists not with belief
          In mercy, carried infinite degrees
          Beyond the tenderness of human hearts:
          Hope, below this, consists not with belief
          In perfect wisdom, guiding mightiest power,
          That finds no limits but her own pure will.

            Here then we rest; not fearing for our creed
          The worst that human reasoning can achieve,
          To unsettle or perplex it: yet with pain
          Acknowledging, and grievous self-reproach,                 200
          That, though immovably convinced, we want
          Zeal, and the virtue to exist by faith
          As soldiers live by courage; as, by strength
          Of heart, the sailor fights with roaring seas.
          Alas! the endowment of immortal power
          Is matched unequally with custom, time,
          And domineering faculties of sense
          In 'all'; in most, with superadded foes,
          Idle temptations; open vanities,
          Ephemeral offspring of the unblushing world;               210
          And, in the private regions of the mind,
          Ill-governed passions, ranklings of despite,
          Immoderate wishes, pining discontent,
          Distress and care. What then remains?--To seek
          Those helps for his occasions ever near
          Who lacks not will to use them; vows, renewed
          On the first motion of a holy thought;
          Vigils of contemplation; praise; and prayer--
          A stream, which, from the fountain of the heart
          Issuing, however feebly, nowhere flows                     220
          Without access of unexpected strength.
          But, above all, the victory is most sure
          For him, who, seeking faith by virtue, strives
          To yield entire submission to the law
          Of conscience--conscience reverenced and obeyed,
          As God's most intimate presence in the soul,
          And his most perfect image in the world.
          --Endeavour thus to live; these rules regard;
          These helps solicit; and a stedfast seat
          Shall then be yours among the happy few                    230
          Who dwell on earth, yet breathe empyreal air
          Sons of the morning. For your nobler part,
          Ere disencumbered of her mortal chains,
          Doubt shall be quelled and trouble chased away;
          With only such degree of sadness left
          As may support longings of pure desire;
          And strengthen love, rejoicing secretly
          In the sublime attractions of the grave."

            While, in this strain, the venerable Sage
          Poured forth his aspirations, and announced                240
          His judgments, near that lonely house we paced
          A plot of greensward, seemingly preserved
          By nature's care from wreck of scattered stones,
          And from encroachment of encircling heath:
          Small space! but, for reiterated steps,
          Smooth and commodious; as a stately deck
          Which to and fro the mariner is used
          To tread for pastime, talking with his mates,
          Or haply thinking of far-distant friends,
          While the ship glides before a steady breeze.              250
          Stillness prevailed around us: and the voice
          That spake was capable to lift the soul
          Toward regions yet more tranquil. But, methought,
          That he, whose fixed despondency had given
          Impulse and motive to that strong discourse,
          Was less upraised in spirit than abashed;
          Shrinking from admonition, like a man
          Who feels that to exhort is to reproach.
          Yet not to be diverted from his aim,
          The Sage continued:--
                                 "For that other loss,               260
          The loss of confidence in social man,
          By the unexpected transports of our age
          Carried so high, that every thought, which looked
          Beyond the temporal destiny of the Kind,
          To many seemed superfluous--as, no cause
          Could e'er for such exalted confidence
          Exist; so, none is now for fixed despair:
          The two extremes are equally disowned
          By reason: if, with sharp recoil, from one
          You have been driven far as its opposite,                  270
          Between them seek the point whereon to build
          Sound expectations. So doth he advise
          Who shared at first the illusion; but was soon
          Cast from the pedestal of pride by shocks
          Which Nature gently gave, in woods and fields;
          Nor unreproved by Providence, thus speaking
          To the inattentive children of the world:
          'Vainglorious Generation! what new powers
          'On you have been conferred? what gifts, withheld
          'From your progenitors, have ye received,                  280
          'Fit recompense of new desert? what claim
          'Are ye prepared to urge, that my decrees
          'For you should undergo a sudden change;
          'And the weak functions of one busy day,
          'Reclaiming and extirpating, perform
          'What all the slowly-moving years of time,
          'With their united force, have left undone?
          'By nature's gradual processes be taught;
          'By story be confounded! Ye aspire
          'Rashly, to fall once more; and that false fruit,          290
          'Which, to your overweening spirits, yields
          'Hope of a flight celestial, will produce
          'Misery and shame. But Wisdom of her sons
          'Shall not the less, though late, be justified.'

            Such timely warning," said the Wanderer, "gave
          That visionary voice; and, at this day,
          When a Tartarean darkness overspreads
          The groaning nations; when the impious rule,
          By will or by established ordinance,
          Their own dire agents, and constrain the good              300
          To acts which they abhor; though I bewail
          This triumph, yet the pity of my heart
          Prevents me not from owning, that the law,
          By which mankind now suffers, is most just.
          For by superior energies; more strict
          Affiance in each other; faith more firm
          In their unhallowed principles; the bad
          Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak,
          The vacillating, inconsistent good.
          Therefore, not unconsoled, I wait--in hope                 310
          To see the moment, when the righteous cause
          Shall gain defenders zealous and devout
          As they who have opposed her; in which Virtue
          Will, to her efforts, tolerate no bounds
          That are not lofty as her rights; aspiring
          By impulse of her own ethereal zeal.
          That spirit only can redeem mankind;
          And when that sacred spirit shall appear,
          Then shall 'four' triumph be complete as theirs.
          Yet, should this confidence prove vain, the wise           320
          Have still the keeping of their proper peace;
          Are guardians of their own tranquillity.
          They act, or they recede, observe, and feel;
          'Knowing the heart of man is set to be
          The centre of this world, about the which
          Those revolutions of disturbances
          Still roll; where all the aspects of misery
          Predominate; whose strong effects are such
          As he must bear, being powerless to redress;
          "And that unless above himself he can                      330
          Erect himself, how poor a thing is Man!"'

            Happy is he who lives to understand,
          Not human nature only, but explores
          All natures,--to the end that he may find
          The law that governs each; and where begins
          The union, the partition where, that makes
          Kind and degree, among all visible Beings;
          The constitutions, powers, and faculties,
          Which they inherit,--cannot step beyond,--
          And cannot fall beneath; that do assign                    340
          To every class its station and its office,
          Through all the mighty commonwealth of things
          Up from the creeping plant to sovereign Man.
          Such converse, if directed by a meek,
          Sincere, and humble spirit, teaches love:
          For knowledge is delight; and such delight
          Breeds love: yet, suited as it rather is
          To thought and to the climbing intellect,
          It teaches less to love, than to adore;
          If that be not indeed the highest love!"                   350

            "Yet," said I, tempted here to interpose,
          "The dignity of life is not impaired
          By aught that innocently satisfies
          The humbler cravings of the heart; and he
          Is a still happier man, who, for those heights
          Of speculation not unfit, descends;
          And such benign affections cultivates
          Among the inferior kinds; not merely those
          That he may call his own, and which depend,
          As individual objects of regard,                           360
          Upon his care, from whom he also looks
          For signs and tokens of a mutual bond;
          But others, far beyond this narrow sphere,
          Whom, for the very sake of love, he loves.
          Nor is it a mean praise of rural life
          And solitude, that they do favour most,
          Most frequently call forth, and best sustain,
          These pure sensations; that can penetrate
          The obstreperous city; on the barren seas
          Are not unfelt; and much might recommend,                  370
          How much they might inspirit and endear,
          The loneliness of this sublime retreat!"

            "Yes," said the Sage, resuming the discourse
          Again directed to his downcast Friend,
          "If, with the froward will and grovelling soul
          Of man, offended, liberty is here,
          And invitation every hour renewed,
          To mark 'their' placid state, who never heard
          Of a command which they have power to break,
          Or rule which they are tempted to transgress:              380
          These, with a soothed or elevated heart,
          May we behold; their knowledge register;
          Observe their ways; and, free from envy, find
          Complacence there:--but wherefore this to you?
          I guess that, welcome to your lonely hearth,
          The redbreast, ruffled up by winter's cold
          Into a 'feathery bunch,' feeds at your hand:
          A box, perchance, is from your casement hung
          For the small wren to build in;--not in vain,
          The barriers disregarding that surround                    390
          This deep abiding place, before your sight
          Mounts on the breeze the butterfly; and soars,
          Small creature as she is, from earth's bright flowers,
          Into the dewy clouds. Ambition reigns
          In the waste wilderness: the Soul ascends
          Drawn towards her native firmament of heaven,
          When the fresh eagle, in the month of May,
          Upborne, at evening, on replenished wing,
          This shaded valley leaves; and leaves the dark
          Empurpled hills, conspicuously renewing                    400
          A proud communication with the sun
          Low sunk beneath the horizon!--List!--I heard,
          From yon huge breast of rock, a voice sent forth
          As if the visible mountain made the cry.
          Again!"--The effect upon the soul was such
          As he expressed: from out the mountain's heart
          The solemn voice appeared to issue, startling
          The blank air--for the region all around
          Stood empty of all shape of life, and silent
          Save for that single cry, the unanswered bleat             410
          Of a poor lamb--left somewhere to itself,
          The plaintive spirit of the solitude!
          He paused, as if unwilling to proceed,
          Through consciousness that silence in such place
          Was best, the most affecting eloquence.
          But soon his thoughts returned upon themselves,
          And, in soft tone of speech, thus he resumed.

            "Ah! if the heart, too confidently raised,
          Perchance too lightly occupied, or lulled
          Too easily, despise or overlook                            420
          The vassalage that binds her to the earth,
          Her sad dependence upon time, and all
          The trepidations of mortality,
          What place so destitute and void--but there
          The little flower her vanity shall check;
          The trailing worm reprove her thoughtless pride?

            These craggy regions, these chaotic wilds,
          Does that benignity pervade, that warms
          The mole contented with her darksome walk
          In the cold ground; and to the emmet gives                 430
          Her foresight, and intelligence that makes
          The tiny creatures strong by social league;
          Supports the generations, multiplies
          Their tribes, till we behold a spacious plain
          Or grassy bottom, all, with little hills--
          Their labour, covered, as a lake with waves;
          Thousands of cities, in the desert place
          Built up of life, and food, and means of life!
          Nor wanting here, to entertain the thought,
          Creatures that in communities exist,                       440
          Less, as might seem, for general guardianship
          Or through dependence upon mutual aid,
          Than by participation of delight
          And a strict love of fellowship, combined.
          What other spirit can it be that prompts
          The gilded summer flies to mix and weave
          Their sports together in the solar beam,
          Or in the gloom of twilight hum their joy?
          More obviously the self-same influence rules
          The feathered kinds; the fieldfare's pensive flock,        450
          The cawing rooks, and sea-mews from afar,
          Hovering above these inland solitudes,
          By the rough wind unscattered, at whose call
          Up through the trenches of the long-drawn vales
          Their voyage was begun: nor is its power
          Unfelt among the sedentary fowl
          That seek yon pool, and there prolong their stay
          In silent congress; or together roused
          Take flight; while with their clang the air resounds:
          And, over all, in that ethereal vault,                     460
          Is the mute company of changeful clouds;
          Bright apparition, suddenly put forth,
          The rainbow smiling on the faded storm;
          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;                 470
          And what a marvellous and heavenly show
          Was suddenly revealed!--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              480
          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.                  490
          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              500
          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,                         510
          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                          520
          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                      530
          Their way before them--what a joy to roam
          An equal among mightiest energies;
          And haply sometimes with articulate voice,
          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, prolonged!'"

            "Yes," said the Wanderer, taking from my lips            540
          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,            550
          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,             560
          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:              570
          And music waits upon your skilful touch,
          Sounds which the wandering shepherd from these heights
          Hears, and forgets his purpose;--furnished 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;               580
          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
          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                   590
          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,                 600
          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.                 610

            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,                        620
          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,
          On its own axis restlessly revolving,
          Seeks, yet can nowhere find, the light of truth.           630

            Upon the breast of new-created earth
          Man walked; and when and wheresoe'er he moved,
          Alone or mated, solitude was not.
          He heard, borne on the wind, the articulate voice
          Of God; and Angels to his sight appeared
          Crowning the glorious hills of paradise;
          Or through the groves gliding like morning mist
          Enkindled by the sun. He sate--and talked
          With winged Messengers; who daily brought
          To his small island in the ethereal deep                   640
          Tidings of joy and love.--From those pure heights
          (Whether of actual vision, sensible
          To sight and feeling, or that in this sort
          Have condescendingly been shadowed forth
          Communications spiritually maintained,
          And intuitions moral and divine)
          Fell Human-kind--to banishment condemned
          That flowing years repealed not: and distress
          And grief spread wide; but Man escaped the doom
          Of destitution;--solitude was not.                         650
          --Jehovah--shapeless Power above all Powers,
          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;              660
          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 engulphed; 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:--            670
          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,
          With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow,
          Presented sacrifice to moon and stars,
          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:            680
          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, upreared
          Tower eight times planted on the top of tower,
          That Belus, nightly to his splendid couch
          Descending, there might rest; upon that height
          Pure and serene, diffused--to overlook
          Winding Euphrates, and the city vast
          Of his devoted worshippers, far-stretched,                 690
          With grove and field and garden interspersed;
          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. The planetary Five
          With a submissive reverence they beheld;                   700
          Watched, from the centre of their sleeping flocks,
          Those radiant Mercuries, that seemed to move
          Carrying through ether, in perpetual round,
          Decrees and resolutions of the Gods;
          And, by their aspects, signifying works
          Of dim futurity, to Man revealed.
          --The imaginative faculty was lord
          Of observations natural; and, thus
          Led on, those shepherds made report of stars
          In set rotation passing to and fro,                        710
          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,
          Rivers and fertile plains, and sounding shores,--
          Under a cope of sky more variable,                         720
          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.
       

THE EXCURSION
BOOK FIFTH
THE PASTOR

          "FAREWELL, deep Valley, with thy one rude House,
          And its small lot of life-supporting fields,
          And guardian rocks!--Farewell, attractive seat!
          To the still influx of the morning light
          Open, and day's pure cheerfulness, but veiled
          From human observation, as if yet
          Primeval forests wrapped thee round with dark
          Impenetrable shade; once more farewell,
          Majestic circuit, beautiful abyss,
          By Nature destined from the birth of things                 10
          For quietness profound!"
                                    Upon the side
          Of that brown ridge, sole outlet of the vale
          Which foot of boldest stranger would attempt,
          Lingering behind my comrades, thus I breathed
          A parting tribute to a spot that seemed
          Like the fixed centre of a troubled world.
          Again I halted with reverted eyes;
          The chain that would not slacken, was at length
          Snapt,--and, pursuing leisurely my way,
          How vain, thought I, is it by change of place               20
          To seek that comfort which the mind denies;
          Yet trial and temptation oft are shunned
          Wisely; and by such tenure do we hold
          Frail life's possessions, that even they whose fate
          Yields no peculiar reason of complaint
          Might, by the promise that is here, be won
          To steal from active duties, and embrace
          Obscurity, and undisturbed repose.
          --Knowledge, methinks, in these disordered times,
          Should be allowed a privilege to have                       30
          Her anchorites, like piety of old;
          Men, who, from faction sacred, and unstained
          By war, might, if so minded, turn aside
          Uncensured, and subsist, a scattered few
          Living to God and nature, and content
          With that communion. Consecrated be
          The spots where such abide! But happier still
          The Man, whom, furthermore, a hope attends
          That meditation and research may guide
          His privacy to principles and powers                        40
          Discovered or invented; or set forth,
          Through his acquaintance with the ways of truth,
          In lucid order; so that, when his course
          Is run, some faithful eulogist may say,
          He sought not praise, and praise did overlook
          His unobtrusive merit; but his life,
          Sweet to himself, was exercised in good
          That shall survive his name and memory.

            Acknowledgments of gratitude sincere
          Accompanied these musings; fervent thanks                   50
          For my own peaceful lot and happy choice;
          A choice that from the passions of the world
          Withdrew, and fixed me in a still retreat;
          Sheltered, but not to social duties lost,
          Secluded, but not buried; and with song
          Cheering my days, and with industrious thought;
          With the ever-welcome company of books;
          With virtuous friendship's soul-sustaining aid,
          And with the blessings of domestic love.

            Thus occupied in mind I paced along,                      60
          Following the rugged road, by sledge or wheel
          Worn in the moorland, till I overtook
          My two Associates, in the morning sunshine
          Halting together on a rocky knoll,
          Whence the bare road descended rapidly
          To the green meadows of another vale.

            Here did our pensive Host put forth his hand
          In sign of farewell. "Nay," the old Man said,
          "The fragrant air its coolness still retains;
          The herds and flocks are yet abroad to crop                 70
          The dewy grass; you cannot leave us now,
          We must not part at this inviting hour."
          He yielded, though reluctant; for his mind
          Instinctively disposed him to retire
          To his own covert; as a billow, heaved
          Upon the beach, rolls back into the sea.
          --So we descend: and winding round a rock
          Attain a point that showed the valley--stretched
          In length before us; and, not distant far,
          Upon a rising ground a grey church-tower,                   80
          Whose battlements were screened by tufted trees.
          And towards a crystal Mere, that lay beyond
          Among steep hills and woods embosomed, flowed
          A copious stream with boldly-winding course;
          Here traceable, there hidden--there again
          To sight restored, and glittering in the sun.
          On the stream's bank, and everywhere, appeared
          Fair dwellings, single, or in social knots;
          Some scattered o'er the level, others perched
          On the hill sides, a cheerful quiet scene,                  90
          Now in its morning purity arrayed.

            "As 'mid some happy valley of the Alps,"
          Said I, "once happy, ere tyrannic power,
          Wantonly breaking in upon the Swiss,
          Destroyed their unoffending commonwealth,
          A popular equality reigns here,
          Save for yon stately House beneath whose roof
          A rural lord might dwell."--"No feudal pomp,
          Or power," replied the Wanderer, "to that House
          Belongs, but there in his allotted Home                    100
          Abides, from year to year, a genuine Priest,
          The shepherd of his flock; or, as a king
          Is styled, when most affectionately praised,
          The father of his people. Such is he;
          And rich and poor, and young and old, rejoice
          Under his spiritual sway. He hath vouchsafed
          To me some portion of a kind regard;
          And something also of his inner mind
          Hath he imparted--but I speak of him
          As he is known to all.
                                  The calm delights                  110
          Of unambitious piety he chose,
          And learning's solid dignity; though born
          Of knightly race, nor wanting powerful friends.
          Hither, in prime of manhood, he withdrew
          From academic bowers. He loved the spot--
          Who does not love his native soil?--he prized
          The ancient rural character, composed
          Of simple manners, feelings unsupprest
          And undisguised, and strong and serious thought
          A character reflected in himself,                          120
          With such embellishment as well beseems
          His rank and sacred function. This deep vale
          Winds far in reaches hidden from our sight,
          And one a turreted manorial hall
          Adorns, in which the good Man's ancestors
          Have dwelt through ages, Patrons of this Cure.
          To them, and to his own judicious pains,
          The Vicar's dwelling, and the whole domain,
          Owes that presiding aspect which might well
          Attract your notice; statelier than could else             130
          Have been bestowed, through course of common chance,
          On an unwealthy mountain Benefice."

            This said, oft pausing, we pursued our way;
          Nor reached the village-churchyard till the sun
          Travelling at steadier pace than ours, had risen
          Above the summits of the highest hills,
          And round our path darted oppressive beams.

            As chanced, the portals of the sacred Pile
          Stood open; and we entered. On my frame,
          At such transition from the fervid air,                    140
          A grateful coolness fell, that seemed to strike
          The heart, in concert with that temperate awe
          And natural reverence which the place inspired.
          Not raised in nice proportions was the pile,
          But large and massy; for duration built;
          With pillars crowded, and the roof upheld
          By naked rafters intricately crossed,
          Like leafless underboughs, in some thick wood,
          All withered by the depth of shade above.
          Admonitory texts inscribed the walls,                      150
          Each, in its ornamental scroll, enclosed;
          Each also crowned with winged heads--a pair
          Of rudely-painted Cherubim. The floor
          Of nave and aisle, in unpretending guise,
          Was occupied by oaken benches ranged
          In seemly rows; the chancel only showed
          Some vain distinctions, marks of earthly state
          By immemorial privilege allowed;
          Though with the Encincture's special sanctity
          But ill according. An heraldic shield,                     160
          Varying its tincture with the changeful light,
          Imbued the altar-window; fixed aloft
          A faded hatchment hung, and one by time
          Yet undiscoloured. A capacious pew
          Of sculptured oak stood here, with drapery lined;
          And marble monuments were here displayed
          Thronging the walls; and on the floor beneath
          Sepulchral stones appeared, with emblems graven
          And foot-worn epitaphs, and some with small
          And shining effigies of brass inlaid.                      170

            The tribute by these various records claimed,
          Duly we paid, each after each, and read
          The ordinary chronicle of birth,
          Office, alliance, and promotion--all
          Ending in dust; of upright magistrates,
          Grave doctors strenuous for the mother-church,
          And uncorrupted senators, alike
          To king and people true. A brazen plate,
          Not easily deciphered, told of one
          Whose course of earthly honour was begun                   180
          In quality of page among the train
          Of the eighth Henry, when he crossed the seas
          His royal state to show, and prove his strength
          In tournament, upon the fields of France.
          Another tablet registered the death,
          And praised the gallant bearing, of a Knight
          Tried in the sea-fights of the second Charles.
          Near this brave Knight his Father lay entombed;
          And, to the silent language giving voice,
          I read,--how in his manhood's earlier day                  190
          He, 'mid the afflictions of intestine war
          And rightful government subverted, found
          One only solace--that he had espoused
          A virtuous Lady tenderly beloved
          For her benign perfections; and yet more
          Endeared to him, for this, that, in her state
          Of wedlock richly crowned with Heaven's regard,
          She with a numerous issue filled his house,
          Who throve, like plants, uninjured by the storm
          That laid their country waste. No need to speak            200
          Of less particular notices assigned
          To Youth or Maiden gone before their time,
          And Matrons and unwedded Sisters old;
          Whose charity and goodness were rehearsed
          In modest panegyric.
                                "These dim lines,
          What would they tell?" said I,--but, from the task
          Of puzzling out that faded narrative,
          With whisper soft my venerable Friend
          Called me; and, looking down the darksome aisle,
          I saw the Tenant of the lonely vale                        210
          Standing apart; with curved arm reclined
          On the baptismal font; his pallid face
          Upturned, as if his mind were rapt, or lost
          In some abstraction;--gracefully he stood,
          The semblance bearing of a sculptured form
          That leans upon a monumental urn
          In peace, from morn to night, from year to year.

            Him from that posture did the Sexton rouse;
          Who entered, humming carelessly a tune,
          Continuation haply of the notes                            220
          That had beguiled the work from which he came,
          With spade and mattock o'er his shoulder hung;
          To be deposited, for future need,
          In their appointed place. The pale Recluse
          Withdrew; and straight we followed,--to a spot
          Where sun and shade were intermixed; for there
          A broad oak, stretching forth its leafy arms
          From an adjoining pasture, overhung
          Small space of that green churchyard with a light
          And pleasant awning. On the moss-grown wall                230
          My ancient Friend and I together took
          Our seats; and thus the Solitary spake,
          Standing before us:--
                                 "Did you note the mien
          Of that self-solaced, easy-hearted churl,
          Death's hireling, who scoops out his neighbour's grave,
          Or wraps an old acquaintance up in clay,
          All unconcerned as he would bind a sheaf,
          Or plant a tree. And did you hear his voice?
          I was abruptly summoned by the sound
          From some affecting images and thoughts,                   240
          Which then were silent; but crave utterance now.

            Much," he continued, with dejected look,
          "Much, yesterday, was said in glowing phrase,
          Of our sublime dependencies, and hopes
          For future states of being; and the wings
          Of speculation, joyfully outspread,
          Hovered above our destiny on earth:
          But stoop, and place the prospect of the soul
          In sober contrast with reality,
          And man's substantial life. If this mute earth             250
          Of what it holds could speak, and every grave
          Were as a volume, shut, yet capable
          Of yielding its contents to eye and ear,
          We should recoil, stricken with sorrow and shame,
          To see disclosed, by such dread proof, how ill
          That which is done accords with what is known
          To reason, and by conscience is enjoined;
          How idly, how perversely, life's whole course,
          To this conclusion, deviates from the line,
          Or of the end stops short, proposed to all                 260
          At her aspiring outset.
                                   Mark the babe
          Not long accustomed to this breathing world;
          One that hath barely learned to shape a smile,
          Though yet irrational of soul, to grasp
          With tiny finger--to let fall a tear;
          And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves,
          To stretch his limbs, bemocking, as might seem,
          The outward functions of intelligent man;
          A grave proficient in amusive feats
          Of puppetry, that from the lap declare                     270
          His expectations, and announce his claims
          To that inheritance which millions rue
          That they were ever born to! In due time
          A day of solemn ceremonial comes;
          When they, who for this Minor hold in trust
          Rights that transcend the loftiest heritage
          Of mere humanity, present their Charge,
          For this occasion daintily adorned,
          At the baptismal font. And when the pure
          And consecrating element hath cleansed                     280
          The original stain, the child is there received
          Into the second ark, Christ's church, with trust
          That he, from wrath redeemed, therein shall float
          Over the billows of this troublesome world
          To the fair land of everlasting life.
          Corrupt affections, covetous desires,
          Are all renounced; high as the thought of man
          Can carry virtue, virtue is professed;
          A dedication made, a promise given
          For due provision to control and guide,                    290
          And unremitting progress to ensure
          In holiness and truth."
                                   "You cannot blame,"
          Here interposing fervently I said,
          "Rites which attest that Man by nature lies
          Bedded for good and evil in a gulf
          Fearfully low; nor will your judgment scorn
          Those services, whereby attempt is made
          To lift the creature toward that eminence
          On which, now fallen, erewhile in majesty
          He stood; or if not so, whose top serene                   300
          At least he feels 'tis given him to descry;
          Not without aspirations, evermore
          Returning, and injunctions from within
          Doubt to cast off and weariness; in trust
          That what the Soul perceives, if glory lost,
          May be, through pains and persevering hope,
          Recovered; or, if hitherto unknown,
          Lies within reach, and one day shall be gained."

            "I blame them not," he calmly answered--"no;
          The outward ritual and established forms                   310
          With which communities of men invest
          These inward feelings, and the aspiring vows
          To which the lips give public utterance
          Are both a natural process; and by me
          Shall pass uncensured; though the issue prove,
          Bringing from age to age its own reproach,
          Incongruous, impotent, and blank.--But, oh!
          If to be weak is to be wretched--miserable,
          As the lost Angel by a human voice
          Hath mournfully pronounced, then, in my mind,              320
          Far better not to move at all than move
          By impulse sent from such illusive power,--
          That finds and cannot fasten down; that grasps
          And is rejoiced, and loses while it grasps;
          That tempts, emboldens--for a time sustains,
          And then betrays; accuses and inflicts
          Remorseless punishment; and so retreads
          The inevitable circle: better far
          Than this, to graze the herb in thoughtless peace,
          By foresight or remembrance, undisturbed!                  330

            Philosophy! and thou more vaunted name
          Religion! with thy statelier retinue,
          Faith, Hope, and Charity--from the visible world
          Choose for your emblems whatsoe'er ye find
          Of safest guidance or of firmest trust--
          The torch, the star, the anchor; nor except
          The cross itself, at whose unconscious feet
          The generations of mankind have knelt
          Ruefully seized, and shedding bitter tears,
          And through that conflict seeking rest--of you,            340
          High-titled Powers, am I constrained to ask,
          Here standing, with the unvoyageable sky
          In faint reflection of infinitude
          Stretched overhead, and at my pensive feet
          A subterraneous magazine of bones,
          In whose dark vaults my own shall soon be laid,
          Where are your triumphs? your dominion where?
          And in what age admitted and confirmed?
          --Not for a happy land do I enquire,
          Island or grove, that hides a blessed few                  350
          Who, with obedience willing and sincere,
          To your serene authorities conform;
          But whom, I ask, of individual Souls,
          Have ye withdrawn from passion's crooked ways,
          Inspired, and thoroughly fortified?--If the heart
          Could be inspected to its inmost folds
          By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,
          Who shall be named--in the resplendent line
          Of sages, martyrs, confessors--the man
          Whom the best might of faith, wherever fixed,              360
          For one day's little compass, has preserved
          From painful and discreditable shocks
          Of contradiction, from some vague desire
          Culpably cherished, or corrupt relapse
          To some unsanctioned fear?"
                                       "If this be so,
          And Man," said I, "be in his noblest shape
          Thus pitiably infirm; then, he who made,
          And who shall judge the creature, will forgive.
          --Yet, in its general tenor, your complaint
          Is all too true; and surely not misplaced:                 370
          For, from this pregnant spot of ground, such thoughts
          Rise to the notice of a serious mind
          By natural exhalation. With the dead
          In their repose, the living in their mirth,
          Who can reflect, unmoved, upon the round
          Of smooth and solemnized complacencies,
          By which, on Christian lands, from age to age
          Profession mocks performance. Earth is sick,
          And Heaven is weary, of the hollow words
          Which States and Kingdoms utter when they talk             380
          Of truth and justice. Turn to private life
          And social neighbourhood; look we to ourselves;
          A light of duty shines on every day
          For all; and yet how few are warmed or cheered!
          How few who mingle with their fellow-men
          And still remain self-governed, and apart,
          Like this our honoured Friend; and thence acquire
          Right to expect his vigorous decline,
          That promises to the end a blest old age!"

            "Yet," with a smile of triumph thus exclaimed            390
          The Solitary, "in the life of man,
          If to the poetry of common speech
          Faith may be given, we see as in a glass
          A true reflection of the circling year,
          With all its seasons. Grant that Spring is there,
          In spite of many a rough untoward blast,
          Hopeful and promising with buds and flowers;
          Yet where is glowing Summer's long rich day,
          That 'ought' to follow faithfully expressed?
          And mellow Autumn, charged with bounteous fruit,           400
          Where is she imaged? in what favoured clime
          Her lavish pomp, and ripe magnificence?
          --Yet, while the better part is missed, the worse
          In man's autumnal season is set forth
          With a resemblance not to be denied,
          And that contents him; bowers that hear no more
          The voice of gladness, less and less supply
          Of outward sunshine and internal warmth;
          And, with this change, sharp air and falling leaves,
          Foretelling aged Winter's desolate sway.                   410

            How gay the habitations that bedeck
          This fertile valley! Not a house but seems
          To give assurance of content within;
          Embosomed happiness, and placid love;
          As if the sunshine of the day were met
          With answering brightness in the hearts of all
          Who walk this favoured ground. But chance-regards,
          And notice forced upon incurious ears;
          These, if these only, acting in despite
          Of the encomiums by my Friend pronounced                   420
          On humble life, forbid the judging mind
          To trust the smiling aspect of this fair
          And noiseless commonwealth. The simple race
          Of mountaineers (by nature's self removed
          From foul temptations, and by constant care
          Of a good shepherd tended as themselves
          Do tend their flocks) partake man's general lot
          With little mitigation. They escape,
          Perchance, the heavier woes of guilt; feel not
          The tedium of fantastic idleness:                          430
          Yet life, as with the multitude, with them
          Is fashioned like an ill-constructed tale;
          That on the outset wastes its gay desires,
          Its fair adventures, its enlivening hopes,
          And pleasant interests--for the sequel leaving
          Old things repeated with diminished grace;
          And all the laboured novelties at best
          Imperfect substitutes, whose use and power
          Evince the want and weakness whence they spring."

            While in this serious mood we held discourse,            440
          The reverend Pastor toward the churchyard gate
          Approached; and, with a mild respectful air
          Of native cordiality, our Friend
          Advanced to greet him. With a gracious mien
          Was he received, and mutual joy prevailed.
          Awhile they stood in conference, and I guess
          That he, who now upon the mossy wall
          Sate by my side, had vanished, if a wish
          Could have transferred him to the flying clouds,
          Or the least penetrable hiding-place                       450
          In his own valley's rocky guardianship.
          --For me, I looked upon the pair, well pleased:
          Nature had framed them both, and both were marked
          By circumstance, with intermixture fine
          Of contrast and resemblance. To an oak
          Hardy and grand, a weather-beaten oak,
          Fresh in the strength and majesty of age,
          One might be likened: flourishing appeared,
          Though somewhat past the fulness of his prime,
          The other--like a stately sycamore,                        460
          That spreads, in gentle pomp, its honied shade.

            A general greeting was exchanged; and soon
          The Pastor learned that his approach had given
          A welcome interruption to discourse
          Grave, and in truth too often sad.--"Is Man
          A child of hope? Do generations press
          On generations, without progress made?
          Halts the individual, ere his hairs be grey,
          Perforce? Are we a creature in whom good
          Preponderates, or evil? Doth the will                      470
          Acknowledge reason's law? A living power
          Is virtue, or no better than a name,
          Fleeting as health or beauty, and unsound?
          So that the only substance which remains,
          (For thus the tenor of complaint hath run)
          Among so many shadows, are the pains
          And penalties of miserable life,
          Doomed to decay, and then expire in dust!
          --Our cogitations, this way have been drawn,
          These are the points," the Wanderer said, "on which        480
          Our inquest turns.--Accord, good Sir! the light
          Of your experience to dispel this gloom:
          By your persuasive wisdom shall the heart
          That frets, or languishes, be stilled and cheered."

            "Our nature," said the Priest, in mild reply,
          "Angels nay weigh and fathom: they perceive,
          With undistempered and unclouded spirit,
          The object as it is; but, for ourselves,
          That speculative height 'we' may not reach.
          The good and evil are our own; and we                      490
          Are that which we would contemplate from far.
          Knowledge, for us, is difficult to gain--
          Is difficult to gain, and hard to keep--
          As virtue's self; like virtue is beset
          With snares; tried, tempted, subject to decay.
          Love, admiration, fear, desire, and hate,
          Blind were we without these: through these alone
          Are capable to notice or discern
          Or to record; we judge, but cannot be
          Indifferent judges. 'Spite of proudest boast,              500
          Reason, best reason, is to imperfect man
          An effort only, and a noble aim;
          A crown, an attribute of sovereign power,
          Still to be courted--never to be won.
          --Look forth, or each man dive into himself;
          What sees he but a creature too perturbed;
          That is transported to excess; that yearns,
          Regrets, or trembles, wrongly, or too much;
          Hopes rashly, in disgust as rash recoils;
          Battens on spleen, or moulders in despair;                 510
          Thus comprehension fails, and truth is missed;
          Thus darkness and delusion round our path
          Spread, from disease, whose subtle injury lurks
          Within the very faculty of sight.

            Yet for the general purposes of faith
          In Providence, for solace and support,
          We may not doubt that who can best subject
          The will to reason's law, can strictliest live
          And act in that obedience, he shall gain
          The clearest apprehension of those truths,                 520
          Which unassisted reason's utmost power
          Is too infirm to reach. But, waiving this,
          And our regards confining within bounds
          Of less exalted consciousness, through which
          The very multitude are free to range,
          We safely may affirm that human life
          Is either fair and tempting, a soft scene
          Grateful to sight, refreshing to the soul,
          Or a forbidden tract of cheerless view;
          Even as the same is looked at, or approached.              530
          Thus, when in changeful April fields are white
          With new-fallen snow, if from the sullen north
          Your walk conduct you hither, ere the sun
          Hath gained his noontide height, this churchyard, filled
          With mounds transversely lying side by side
          From east to west, before you will appear
          An unillumined, blank, and dreary plain,
          With more than wintry cheerlessness and gloom
          Saddening the heart. Go forward, and look back;
          Look, from the quarter whence the lord of light,           540
          Of life, of love, and gladness doth dispense
          His beams; which, unexcluded in their fall,
          Upon the southern side of every grave
          Have gently exercised a melting power;
          'Then' will a vernal prospect greet your eye,
          All fresh and beautiful, and green and bright,
          Hopeful and cheerful:--vanished is the pall
          That overspread and chilled the sacred turf,
          Vanished or hidden; and the whole domain,
          To some, too lightly minded, might appear                  550
          A meadow carpet for the dancing hours.
          --This contrast, not unsuitable to life,
          Is to that other state more apposite,
          Death and its two-fold aspect! wintry--one,
          Cold, sullen, blank, from hope and joy shut out;
          The other, which the ray divine hath touched,
          Replete with vivid promise, bright as spring."

            "We see, then, as we feel," the Wanderer thus
          With a complacent animation spake,
          "And in your judgment, Sir! the mind's repose              560
          On evidence is not to be ensured
          By act of naked reason. Moral truth
          Is no mechanic structure, built by rule;
          And which, once built, retains a stedfast shape
          And undisturbed proportions; but a thing
          Subject, you deem, to vital accidents;
          And, like the water-lily, lives and thrives,
          Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head
          Floats on the tossing waves. With joy sincere
          I re-salute these sentiments confirmed                     570
          By your authority. But how acquire
          The inward principle that gives effect
          To outward argument; the passive will
          Meek to admit; the active energy,
          Strong and unbounded to embrace, and firm
          To keep and cherish? how shall man unite
          With self-forgetting tenderness of heart
          An earth-despising dignity of soul?
          Wise in that union, and without it blind!"

            "The way," said I, "to court, if not obtain              580
          The ingenuous mind, apt to be set aright;
          This, in the lonely dell discoursing, you
          Declared at large; and by what exercise
          From visible nature, or the inner self
          Power may be trained, and renovation brought
          To those who need the gift. But, after all,
          Is aught so certain as that man is doomed
          To breathe beneath a vault of ignorance?
          The natural roof of that dark house in which
          His soul is pent! How little can be known--                590
          This is the wise man's sigh; how far we err--
          This is the good man's not unfrequent pang!
          And they perhaps err least, the lowly class
          Whom a benign necessity compels
          To follow reason's least ambitious course;
          Such do I mean who, unperplexed by doubt,
          And unincited by a wish to look
          Into high objects farther than they may,
          Pace to and fro, from morn till eventide,
          The narrow avenue of daily toil                            600
          For daily bread."
                             "Yes," buoyantly exclaimed
          The pale Recluse--"praise to the sturdy plough,
          And patient spade; praise to the simple crook,
          And ponderous loom--resounding while it holds
          Body and mind in one captivity;
          And let the light mechanic tool be hailed
          With honour; which, encasing by the power
          Of long companionship, the artist's hand,
          Cuts off that hand, with all its world of nerves,
          From a too busy commerce with the heart!                   610
          --Inglorious implements of craft and toil,
          Both ye that shape and build, and ye that force,
          By slow solicitation, earth to yield
          Her annual bounty, sparingly dealt forth
          With wise reluctance; you would I extol,
          Not for gross good alone which ye produce,
          But for the impertinent and ceaseless strife
          Of proofs and reasons ye preclude--in those
          Who to your dull society are born,
          And with their humble birthright rest content.             620
          --Would I had ne'er renounced it!"
                                              A slight flush
          Of moral anger previously had tinged
          The old Man's cheek; but, at this closing turn
          Of self-reproach, it passed away. Said he,
          "That which we feel we utter; as we think
          So have we argued; reaping for our pains
          No visible recompense. For our relief
          You," to the Pastor turning thus he spake,
          "Have kindly interposed. May I entreat
          Your further help? The mine of real life                   630
          Dig for us; and present us, in the shape
          Of virgin ore, that gold which we, by pains
          Fruitless as those of aery alchemists,
          Seek from the torturing crucible. There lies
          Around us a domain where you have long
          Watched both the outward course and inner heart:
          Give us, for our abstractions, solid facts;
          For our disputes, plain pictures. Say what man
          He is who cultivates yon hanging field;
          What qualities of mind she bears, who comes,               640
          For morn and evening service, with her pail,
          To that green pasture; place before our sight
          The family who dwell within yon house
          Fenced round with glittering laurel; or in that
          Below, from which the curling smoke ascends.
          Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,
          And have the dead around us, take from them
          Your instances; for they are both best known,
          And by frail man most equitably judged.
          Epitomise the life; pronounce, you can,                    650
          Authentic epitaphs on some of these
          Who, from their lowly mansions hither brought,
          Beneath this turf lie mouldering at our feet:
          So, by your records, may our doubts be solved;
          And so, not searching higher we may learn
          'To prize the breath we share with human kind;
          And look upon the dust of man with awe'."

            The Priest replied--"An office you impose
          For which peculiar requisites are mine;
          Yet much, I feel, is wanting--else the task                660
          Would be most grateful. True indeed it is
          That they whom death has hidden from our sight
          Are worthiest of the mind's regard; with these
          The future cannot contradict the past:
          Mortality's last exercise and proof
          Is undergone; the transit made that shows
          The very Soul, revealed as she departs.
          Yet, on your first suggestion, will I give,
          Ere we descend into these silent vaults,
          One picture from the living.
                                        You behold,                  670
          High on the breast of yon dark mountain, dark
          With stony barrenness, a shining speck
          Bright as a sunbeam sleeping till a shower
          Brush it away, or cloud pass over it;
          And such it might be deemed--a sleeping sunbeam;
          But 'tis a plot of cultivated ground,
          Cut off, an island in the dusky waste;
          And that attractive brightness is its own.
          The lofty site, by nature framed to tempt
          Amid a wilderness of rocks and stones                      680
          The tiller's hand, a hermit might have chosen,
          For opportunity presented, thence
          Far forth to send his wandering eye o'er land
          And ocean, and look down upon the works,
          The habitations, and the ways of men,
          Himself unseen! But no tradition tells
          That ever hermit dipped his maple dish
          In the sweet spring that lurks 'mid yon green fields;
          And no such visionary views belong
          To those who occupy and till the ground,                   690
          High on that mountain where they long have dwelt
          A wedded pair in childless solitude.
          A house of stones collected on the spot,
          By rude hands built, with rocky knolls in front.
          Backed also by a ledge of rock, whose crest
          Of birch-trees waves over the chimney top;
          A rough abode--in colour, shape, and size,
          Such as in unsafe times of border-war
          Might have been wished for and contrived, to elude
          The eye of roving plunderer--for their need                700
          Suffices; and unshaken bears the assault
          Of their most dreaded foe, the strong Southwest
          In anger blowing from the distant sea.
          --Alone within her solitary hut;
          There, or within the compass of her fields,
          At any moment may the Dame be found,
          True as the stock-dove to her shallow nest
          And to the grove that holds it. She beguiles
          By intermingled work of house and field
          The summer's day, and winter's; with success               710
          Not equal, but sufficient to maintain,
          Even at the worst, a smooth stream of content,
          Until the expected hour at which her Mate
          From the far-distant quarry's vault returns;
&nbs

...
NOTES

  646 'Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,
      And have the dead around us.'

        Leo. You, Sir, could help me to the history
      Of half these graves?
        Priest.        For eight-score winters past,
      With what I've witnessed, and with what I've heard
      Perhaps I might; . . . . .
      By turning o'er these hillocks one by one,
      We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;
      Yet all in the broad highway of the world.
                                   'See the Brothers'.

  975 'And suffering Nature grieved that one should die.'
                   "Southey's Retrospect."

  978 'And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?'

        The sentiments and opinions here uttered are in unison with
      those expressed in the following Essay upon Epitaphs, which was
      furnished by me for Mr. Coleridge's periodical work, "The Friend";
      and as they are dictated by a spirit congenial to that which
      pervades this and the two succeeding books, the sympathising
      reader will not be displeased to see the Essay here annexed.
                             _____________

      ESSAY UPON EPITAPHS

      IT needs scarcely be said, that an Epitaph presupposes a Monument,
      upon which it is to be engraven. Almost all Nations have wished
      that certain external signs should point out the places where
      their dead are interred. Among savage tribes unacquainted with
      letters this has mostly been done either by rude stones placed
      near the graves, or by mounds of earth raised over them. This
      custom proceeded obviously from a twofold desire: first to guard
      the remains of the deceased from irreverent approach or from
      savage violation: and secondly to preserve their memory. "Never
      any," says Camden, "neglected burial but some savage nations; as
      the Bactrians, which cast their dead to the dogs; some varlet
      philosophers, as Diogenes, who desired to be devoured of fishes;
      some dissolute courtiers, as Maecenas, who was wont to say, Non
      tumulum curo; sepelit natura relictos.

      'I'm careless of a grave:--Nature her dead will save.'"

        As soon as nations had learned the use of letters, epitaphs were
      inscribed upon these monuments; in order that their intention
      might be more surely and adequately fulfilled. I have derived
      monuments and epitaphs from two sources of feeling, but these do
      in fact resolve themselves into one. The invention of epitaphs,
      Weever, in his Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly,
      "proceeded from the presage or fore-feeling of immortality,
      implanted in all men naturally, and is referred to the scholars of
      Linus the Theban poet, who flourished about the year of the world
      two thousand seven hundred; who first bewailed this Linus their
      Master, when he was slain, in doleful verses, then called of him
      Oelina, afterwards Epitaphia, for that they were first sung at
      burials, after engraved upon the sepulchres."

        And, verily, without the consciousness of a principle of
      immortality in the human soul, Man could never have had awakened
      in him the desire to live in the remembrance of his fellows: mere
      love, or the yearning of kind towards kind, could not have
      produced it. The dog or horse perishes in the field, or in the
      stall, by the side of his companions, and is incapable of
      anticipating the sorrow with which his surrounding associates
      shall bemoan his death, or pine for his loss; he cannot pre-
      conceive this regret, he can form no thought of it; and therefore
      cannot possibly have a desire to leave such regret or remembrance
      behind him. Add to the principle of love which exists in the
      inferior animals, the faculty of reason which exists in Man alone;
      will the conjunction of these account for the desire? Doubtless it
      is a necessary consequence of this conjunction; yet not, I think,
      as a direct result, but only to be come at through an intermediate
      thought, viz. that of an intimation or assurance within us, that
      some part of our nature is imperishable. At least the precedence,
      in order of birth, of one feeling to the other, is unquestionable.
      If we look back upon the days of childhood, we shall find that the
      time is not in remembrance when, with respect to our own
      individual Being, the mind was without this assurance; whereas,
      the wish to be remembered by our friends or kindred after death,
      or even in absence, is, as we shall discover, a sensation that
      does not form itself till the 'social' feelings have been
      developed, and the Reason has connected itself with a wide range
      of objects. Forlorn, and cut off from communication with the best
      part of his nature, must that man be, who should derive the sense
      of immortality, as it exists in the mind of a child, from the same
      unthinking gaiety or liveliness of animal spirits with which the
      lamb in the meadow or any other irrational creature is endowed;
      who should ascribe it, in short, to blank ignorance in the child;
      to an inability arising from the imperfect state of his faculties
      to come, in any point of his being, into contact with a notion of
      death; or to an unreflecting acquiescence in what has been
      instilled into him! Has such an unfolder of the mysteries of
      nature, though he may have forgotten his former self, ever noticed
      the early, obstinate, and unappeasable inquisitiveness of children
      upon the subject of origination? This single fact proves outwardly
      the monstrousness of those suppositions: for, if we had no direct
      external testimony that the minds of very young children meditate
      feelingly upon death and immortality, these inquiries, which we
      all know they are perpetually making concerning the 'whence', do
      necessarily include correspondent habits of interrogation
      concerning the 'whither'. Origin and tendency are notions
      inseparably co-relative. Never did a child stand by the side of a
      running stream, pondering within himself what power was the feeder
      of the perpetual current, from what never-wearied sources the body
      of water was supplied, but he must have been inevitably propelled
      to follow this question by another: "Towards what abyss is it in
      progress? what receptacle can contain the mighty influx?" And the
      spirit of the answer must have been, though the word might be sea
      or ocean, accompanied perhaps with an image gathered from a map,
      or from the real object in nature--these might have been the
      'letter', but the 'spirit' of the answer must have been 'as'
      inevitably,--a receptacle without bounds or dimensions;--nothing
      less than infinity. We may, then, be justified in asserting, that
      the sense of immortality, if not a co-existent and twin birth with
      Reason, is among the earliest of her offspring: and we may further
      assert, that from these conjoined, and under their countenance,
      the human affections are gradually formed and opened out. This is
      not the place to enter into the recesses of these investigations;
      but the subject requires me here to make a plain avowal, that, for
      my own part, it is to me inconceivable, that the sympathies of
      love towards each other, which grow with our growth, could ever
      attain any new strength, or even preserve the old, after we had
      received from the outward senses the impression of death, and were
      in the habit of having that impression daily renewed and its
      accompanying feeling brought home to ourselves, and to those we
      love; if the same were not counteracted by those communications
      with our internal Being, which are anterior to all these
      experiences, and with which revelation coincides, and has through
      that coincidence alone (for otherwise it could not possess it) a
      power to affect us. I confess, with me the conviction is absolute
      that, if the impression and sense of death were not thus
      counterbalanced, such a hollowness would pervade the whole system
      of things, such a want of correspondence and consistency, a
      disproportion so astounding betwixt means and ends, that there
      could be no repose, no joy. Were we to grow up unfostered by this
      genial warmth, a frost would chill the spirit, so penetrating and
      powerful that there could be no motions of the life of love; and
      infinitely less could we have any wish to be remembered after we
      had passed away from a world in which each man had moved about
      like a shadow.--If, then, in a creature endowed with the faculties
      of foresight and reason, the social affections could not have
      unfolded themselves uncountenanced by the faith that Man is an
      immortal being, and if, consequently, neither could the individual
      dying have had a desire to survive in the remembrance of his
      fellows, nor on their side could they have felt a wish to preserve
      for future times vestiges of the departed; it follows, as a final
      inference, that without the belief in immortality, wherein these
      several desires originate, neither monuments nor epitaphs, in
      affectionate or laudatory commemoration of the deceased, could
      have existed in the world.

        Simonides, it is related, upon landing in a strange country,
      found the corse of an unknown person lying by the seaside; he
      buried it, and was honoured throughout Greece for the piety of
      that act. Another ancient Philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes
      upon a dead body, regarded the same with slight, if not with
      contempt, saying, "See the shell of the flown bird!" But it is not
      to be supposed that the moral and tender-hearted Simonides was
      incapable of the lofty movements of thought to which that other
      Sage gave way at the moment while his soul was intent only upon
      the indestructible being; nor, on the other hand, that he, in
      whose sight a lifeless human body was of no more value than the
      worthless shell from which the living fowl had departed, would
      not, in a different mood of mind, have been affected by those
      earthly considerations which had incited the philosophic Poet to
      the performance of that pious duty. And with regard to this latter
      we may be assured that, if he had been destitute of the capability
      of communing with the more exalted thoughts that appertain to
      human nature, he would have cared no more for the corse of the
      stranger than for the dead body of a seal or porpoise which might
      have been cast up by the waves. We respect the corporeal frame of
      Man, not merely because it is the habitation of a rational, but of
      an immortal Soul. Each of these Sages was in sympathy with the
      best feelings of our nature; feelings which, though they seem
      opposite to each other, have another and a finer connection than
      that of contrast.--It is a connection formed through the subtle
      progress by which, both in the natural and the moral world,
      qualities pass insensibly into their contraries, and things
      revolve upon each other. As, in sailing upon the orb of this
      planet, a voyage towards the regions where the sun sets conducts
      gradually to the quarter where we have been accustomed to behold
      it come forth at its rising; and, in like manner, a voyage towards
      the east, the birth-place in our imagination of the morning, leads
      finally to the quarter where the sun is last seen when he departs
      from our eyes; so the contemplative Soul, travelling in the
      direction of mortality, advances to the country of everlasting
      life; and, in like manner, may she continue to explore those
      cheerful tracts till she is brought back, for her advantage and
      benefit, to the land of transitory things--of sorrow and of tears.

        On a midway point, therefore, which commands the thoughts and
      feelings of the two Sages whom we have represented in contrast,
      does the Author of that species of composition, the laws of which
      it is our present purpose to explain, take his stand. Accordingly,
      recurring to the twofold desire of guarding the remains of the
      deceased and preserving their memory, it may be said that a
      sepulchral monument is a tribute to a man as a human being; and
      that an epitaph (in the ordinary meaning attached to the word)
      includes this general feeling and something more; and is a record
      to preserve the memory of the dead, as a tribute due to his
      individual worth, for a satisfaction to the sorrowing hearts of
      the survivors, and for the common benefit of the living: which
      record is to be accomplished, not in a general manner, but, where
      it can, in 'close connection with the bodily remains of the
      deceased': and these, it may be added, among the modern nations of
      Europe, are deposited within, or contiguous to, their places of
      worship. In ancient times, as is well known, it was the custom to
      bury the dead beyond the walls of towns and cities; and among the
      Greeks and Romans they were frequently interred by the waysides.

        I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the Reader to
      indulge with me in contemplation of the advantages which must have
      attended such a practice. We might ruminate upon the beauty which
      the monuments, thus placed, must have borrowed from the
      surrounding images of nature--from the trees, the wild flowers,
      from a stream running perhaps within sight or hearing, from the
      beaten road stretching its weary length hard by. Many tender
      similitudes must these objects have presented to the mind of the
      traveller leaning upon one of the tombs, or reposing in the
      coolness of its shade, whether he had halted from weariness or in
      compliance with the invitation, "Pause, Traveller!" so often found
      upon the monuments. And to its epitaph also must have been
      supplied strong appeals to visible appearances or immediate
      impressions, lively and affecting analogies of life as a journey--
      death as a sleep overcoming the tired wayfarer--of misfortune as a
      storm that falls suddenly upon him--of beauty as a flower that
      passeth away, or of innocent pleasure as one that may be gathered-
      -of virtue that standeth firm as a rock against the beating waves-
      -of hope "undermined insensibly like the poplar by the side of the
      river that has fed it," or blasted in a moment like a pine-tree by
      the stroke of lightning upon the mountain-top--of admonitions and
      heart-stirring remembrances, like a refreshing breeze that comes
      without warning, or the taste of the waters of an unexpected
      fountain. These and similar suggestions must have given, formerly,
      to the language of the senseless stone a voice enforced and
      endeared by the benignity of that nature with which it was in
      unison.--We, in modern times, have lost much of these advantages;
      and they are but in a small degree counterbalanced to the
      inhabitants of large towns and cities by the custom of depositing
      the dead within, or contiguous to, their places of worship;
      however splendid or imposing may be the appearance of those
      edifices, or however interesting or salutary the recollections
      associated with them. Even were it not true that tombs lose their
      monitory virtue when thus obtruded upon the notice of men occupied
      with the cares of the world, and too often sullied and defiled by
      those cares, yet still, when death is in our thoughts, nothing can
      make amends for the want of the soothing influences of nature, and
      for the absence of those types of renovation and decay which the
      fields and woods offer to the notice of the serious and
      contemplative mind. To feel the force of this sentiment, let a man
      only compare in imagination the unsightly manner in which our
      monuments are crowded together in the busy, noisy, unclean, and
      almost grassless churchyard of a large town, with the still
      seclusion of a Turkish cemetery, in some remote place, and yet
      further sanctified by the grove of cypress in which it is
      embosomed. Thoughts in the same temper as these have already been
      expressed with true sensibility by an ingenuous Poet of the
      present day. The subject of his poem is "All Saints Church,
      Derby:" he has been deploring the forbidding and unseemly
      appearance of its burial-ground, and uttering a wish that in past
      times the practice had been adopted of interring the inhabitants
      of large towns in the country;--

             Then in some rural, calm, sequestered spot
             Where healing Nature her benignant look
             Ne'er changes, save at that lorn season, when,
             With tresses drooping o'er her sable stole,
             She yearly mourns the mortal doom of man,
             Her noblest work, (so Israel's virgins erst,
             With annual moan upon the mountains wept
             Their fairest gone,) there in that rural scene,
             So placid, so congenial to the wish
             The Christian feels, of peaceful rest within
             The silent grave, I would have stayed:
                  *     *     *     *     *
             --wandered forth, where the cold dew of heaven
             Lay on the humbler graves around, what time
             The pale moon gazed upon the turfy mounds,
             Pensive, as though like me, in lonely muse,
             'Twere brooding on the dead inhumed beneath.
             There while with him, the holy man of Uz,
             O'er human destiny I sympathised,
             Counting the long, long periods prophecy
             Decrees to roll, ere the great day arrives
             Of resurrection, oft the blue-eyed Spring
             Had met me with her blossoms, as the Dove,
             Of old, returned with olive leaf, to cheer
             The Patriarch mourning o'er a world destroyed:
             And I would bless her visit; for to me
             'Tis sweet to trace the consonance that links
             As one, the works of Nature and the word
             Of God.--                       JOHN EDWARDS.

        A village churchyard, lying as it does in the lap of nature, may
      indeed be most favourably contrasted with that of a town of
      crowded population; and sepulture therein combines many of the
      best tendencies which belong to the mode practised by the Ancients
      with others peculiar to itself. The sensations of pious
      cheerfulness, which attend the celebration of the sabbath-day in
      rural places, are profitably chastised by the sight of the graves
      of kindred and friends, gathered together in that general home
      towards which the thoughtful yet happy spectators themselves are
      journeying. Hence a parish church, in the stillness of the
      country, is a visible centre of a community of the living and the
      dead; a point to which are habitually referred the nearest
      concerns of both.

        As, then, both in cities and in villages, the dead are deposited
      in close connection with our places of worship, with us the
      composition of an epitaph naturally turns, still more than among
      the nations of antiquity, upon the most serious and solemn
      affections of the human mind; upon departed worth--upon personal
      or social sorrow and admiration--upon religion, individual and
      social--upon time, and upon eternity. Accordingly, it suffices, in
      ordinary cases, to secure a composition of this kind from censure,
      that it contain nothing that shall shock or be inconsistent with
      this spirit. But, to entitle an epitaph to praise, more than this
      is necessary. It ought to contain some thought or feeling
      belonging to the mortal or immortal part of our nature touchingly
      expressed; and if that be done, however general or even trite the
      sentiment may be, every man of pure mind will read the words with
      pleasure and gratitude. A husband bewails a wife; a parent
      breathes a sigh of disappointed hope over a lost child; a son
      utters a sentiment of filial reverence for a departed father or
      mother; a friend perhaps inscribes an encomium recording the
      companionable qualities, or the solid virtues, of the tenant of
      the grave, whose departure has left a sadness upon his memory.
      This and a pious admonition to the living, and a humble expression
      of Christian confidence in immortality, is the language of a
      thousand churchyards; and it does not often happen that anything,
      in a greater degree discriminate or appropriate to the dead or to
      the living, is to be found in them. This want of discrimination
      has been ascribed by Dr. Johnson, in his Essay upon the epitaphs
      of Pope, to two causes: first, the scantiness of the objects of
      human praise; and, secondly, the want of variety in the characters
      of men; or, to use his own words, "to the fact, that the greater
      part of mankind have no character at all." Such language may be
      holden without blame among the generalities of common
      conversation; but does not become a critic and a moralist speaking
      seriously upon a serious subject. The objects of admiration in
      human nature are not scanty, but abundant: and every man has a
      character of his own to the eye that has skill to perceive it. The
      real cause of the acknowledged want of discrimination in
      sepulchral memorials is this: That to analyse the characters of
      others, especially of those whom we love, is not a common or
      natural employment of men at any time. We are not anxious
      unerringly to understand the constitution of the minds of those
      who have soothed, who have cheered, who have supported us; with
      whom we have been long and daily pleased or delighted. The
      affections are their own justification. The light of love in our
      hearts is a satisfactory evidence that there is a body of worth in
      the minds of our friends or kindred, whence that light has
      proceeded. We shrink from the thought of placing their merits and
      defects to be weighed against each other in the nice balance of
      pure intellect; nor do we find much temptation to detect the
      shades by which a good quality or virtue is discriminated in them
      from an excellence known by the same general name as it exists in
      the mind of another; and least of all do we incline to these
      refinements when under the pressure of sorrow, admiration, or
      regret, or when actuated by any of those feelings which incite men
      to prolong the memory of their friends and kindred by records
      placed in the bosom of the all-uniting and equalising receptacle
      of the dead.

        The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it should
      speak, in a tone which shall sink into the heart, the general
      language of humanity as connected with the subject of death--the
      source from which an epitaph proceeds--of death, and of life. To
      be born and to die are the two points in which all men feel
      themselves to be in absolute coincidence. This general language
      may be uttered so strikingly as to entitle an epitaph to high
      praise; yet it cannot lay claim to the highest unless other
      excellences be superadded. Passing through all intermediate steps,
      we will attempt to determine at once what these excellences are,
      and wherein consists the perfection of this species of
      composition.--It will be found to lie in a due proportion of the
      common or universal feeling of humanity to sensations excited by a
      distinct and clear conception, conveyed to the reader's mind, of
      the individual whose death is deplored and whose memory is to be
      preserved; at least of his character as, after death, it appeared
      to those who loved him and lament his loss. The general sympathy
      ought to be quickened, provoked, and diversified, by particular
      thoughts, actions, images,--circumstances of age, occupation,
      manner of life, prosperity which the deceased had known, or
      adversity to which he had been subject; and these ought to be
      bound together and solemnised into one harmony by the general
      sympathy. The two powers should temper, restrain, and exalt each
      other. The reader ought to know who and what the man was whom he
      is called upon to think of with interest. A distinct conception
      should be given (implicitly where it can, rather than explicitly)
      of the individual lamented.--But the writer of an epitaph is not
      an anatomist, who dissects the internal frame of the mind; he is
      not even a painter, who executes a portrait at leisure and in
      entire tranquillity: his delineation, we must remember, is
      performed by the side of the grave; and, what is more, the grave
      of one whom he loves and admires. What purity and brightness is
      that virtue clothed in, the image of which must no longer bless
      our living eyes! The character of a deceased friend or beloved
      kinsman is not seen--no, nor ought to be seen--otherwise than as a
      tree through a tender haze or a luminous mist, that spiritualises
      and beautifies it; that takes away, indeed, but only to the end
      that the parts which are not abstracted may appear more dignified
      and lovely; may impress and affect the more. Shall we say, then,
      that this is not truth, not a faithful image; and that,
      accordingly, the purposes of commemoration cannot be answered?--It
      'is' truth, and of the highest order; for, though doubtless things
      are not apparent which did exist; yet, the object being looked at
      through this medium, parts and proportions are brought into
      distinct view which before had been only imperfectly or
      unconsciously seen: it is truth hallowed by love--the joint
      offspring of the worth of the dead and the affections of the
      living! This may easily be brought to the test. Let one, whose
      eyes have been sharpened by personal hostility to discover what
      was amiss in the character of a good man, hear the tidings of his
      death, and what a change is wrought in a moment! Enmity melts
      away; and, as it disappears, unsightliness, disproportion, and
      deformity, vanish; and, through the influence of commiseration, a
      harmony of love and beauty succeeds. Bring such a man to the
      tombstone on which shall be inscribed an epitaph on his adversary,
      composed in the spirit which we have recommended. Would he turn
      from it as from an idle tale? No;--the thoughtful look, the sigh,
      and perhaps the involuntary tear, would testify that it had a
      sane, a generous, and good meaning; and that on the writer's mind
      had remained an impression which was a true abstract of the
      character of the deceased; that his gifts and graces were
      remembered in the simplicity in which they ought to be remembered.
      The composition and quality of the mind of a virtuous man,
      contemplated by the side of the grave where his body is
      mouldering, ought to appear, and be felt as something midway
      between what he was on earth walking about with his living
      frailties, and what he may be presumed to be as a Spirit in
      heaven.

        It suffices, therefore, that the trunk and the main branches of
      the worth of the deceased be boldly and unaffectedly represented.
      Any further detail, minutely and scrupulously pursued, especially
      if this be done with laborious and antithetic discriminations,
      must inevitably frustrate its own purpose; forcing the passing
      Spectator to this conclusion,--either that the dead did not
      possess the merits ascribed to him, or that they who have raised a
      monument to his memory, and must therefore be supposed to have
      been closely connected with him, were incapable of perceiving
      those merits; or at least during the act of composition had lost
      sight of them; for, the understanding having been so busy in its
      petty occupation, how could the heart of the mourner be other than
      cold? and in either of these cases, whether the fault be on the
      part of the buried person or the survivors, the memorial is
      unaffecting and profitless.

        Much better is it to fall short in discrimination than to pursue
      it too far, or to labour it unfeelingly. For in no place are we so
      much disposed to dwell upon those points of nature and condition
      wherein all men resemble each other, as in the temple where the
      universal Father is worshipped, or by the side of the grave which
      gathers all human Beings to itself, and "equalises the lofty and
      the low." We suffer and we weep with the same heart; we love and
      are anxious for one another in one spirit; our hopes look to the
      same quarter; and the virtues by which we are all to be furthered
      and supported, as patience, meekness, good-will, justice,
      temperance, and temperate desires, are in an equal degree the
      concern of us all. Let an Epitaph, then, contain at least these
      acknowledgments to our common nature; nor let the sense of their
      importance be sacrificed to a balance of opposite qualities or
      minute distinctions in individual character; which if they do not
      (as will for the most part be the case), when examined, resolve
      themselves into a trick of words, will, even when they are true
      and just, for the most part be grievously out of place; for, as it
      is probable that few only have explored these intricacies of human
      nature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a few.
      But an epitaph is not a proud writing shut up for the studious: it
      is exposed to all--to the wise and the most ignorant; it is
      condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its
      story and admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy,
      and indolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired: the
      stooping old man cons the engraven record like a second horn-
      book;--the child is proud that he can read it;--and the stranger
      is introduced through its mediation to the company of a friend: it
      is concerning all, and for all:--in the churchyard it is open to
      the day; the sun looks down upon the stone, and the rains of
      heaven beat against it.

        Yet, though the writer who would excite sympathy is bound in
      this case, more than in any other, to give proof that he himself
      has been moved, it is to be remembered that to raise a monument is
      a sober and a reflective act; that the inscription which it bears
      is intended to be permanent, and for universal perusal; and that,
      for this reason, the thoughts and feelings expressed should be
      permanent also--liberated from that weakness and anguish of sorrow
      which is in nature transitory, and which with instinctive decency
      retires from notice. The passions should be subdued, the emotions
      controlled; strong, indeed, but nothing ungovernable or wholly
      involuntary. Seemliness requires this, and truth requires it also:
      for how can the narrator otherwise be trusted? Moreover, a grave
      is a tranquillising object: resignation in course of time springs
      up from it as naturally as the wild flowers, besprinkling the turf
      with which it may be covered, or gathering round the monument by
      which it is defended. The very form and substance of the monument
      which has received the inscription, and the appearance of the
      letters, testifying with what a slow and laborious hand they must
      have been engraven, might seem to reproach the author who had
      given way upon this occasion to transports of mind, or to quick
      turns of conflicting passion; though the same might constitute the
      life and beauty of a funeral oration or elegiac poem.

        These sensations and judgments, acted upon perhaps
      unconsciously, have been one of the main causes why epitaphs so
      often personate the deceased, and represent him as speaking from
      his own tomb-stone. The departed Mortal is introduced telling you
      himself that his pains are gone; that a state of rest is come; and
      he conjures you to weep for him no longer. He admonishes with the
      voice of one experienced in the vanity of those affections which
      are confined to earthly objects, and gives a verdict like a
      superior Being, performing the office of a judge, who has no
      temptations to mislead him, and whose decision cannot but be
      dispassionate. Thus is death disarmed of its sting, and affliction
      unsubstantialised. By this tender fiction, the survivors bind
      themselves to a sedater sorrow, and employ the intervention of the
      imagination in order that the reason may speak her own language
      earlier than she would otherwise have been enabled to do. This
      shadowy interposition also harmoniously unites the two worlds of
      the living and the dead by their appropriate affections. And it
      may be observed that here we have an additional proof of the
      propriety with which sepulchral inscriptions were referred to the
      consciousness of immortality as their primal source.

        I do not speak with a wish to recommend that an epitaph should
      be cast in this mould preferably to the still more common one, in
      which what is said comes from the survivors directly; but rather
      to point out how natural those feelings are which have induced
      men, in all states and ranks of society, so frequently to adopt
      this mode. And this I have done chiefly in order that the laws
      which ought to govern the composition of the other may be better
      understood. This latter mode, namely, that in which the survivors
      speak in their own persons, seems to me upon the whole greatly
      preferable, as it admits a wider range of notices; and, above all,
      because, excluding the fiction which is the groundwork of the
      other, it rests upon a more solid basis.

        Enough has been said to convey our notion of a perfect epitaph;
      but it must be borne in mind that one is meant which will best
      answer the 'general' ends of that species of composition.
      According to the course pointed out, the worth of private life,
      through all varieties of situation and character, will be most
      honourably and profitably preserved in memory. Nor would the model
      recommended less suit public men in all instances, save of those
      persons who by the greatness of their services in the employments
      of peace or war, or by the surpassing excellence of their works in
      art, literature, or science, have made themselves not only
      universally known, but have filled the heart of their country with
      everlasting gratitude. Yet I must here pause to correct myself. In
      describing the general tenor of thought which epitaphs ought to
      hold, I have omitted to say, that if it be the 'actions' of a man,
      or even some 'one' conspicuous or beneficial act of local or
      general utility, which have distinguished him, and excited a
      desire that he should be remembered, then, of course, ought the
      attention to be directed chiefly to those actions or that act: and
      such sentiments dwelt upon as naturally arise out of them or it.
      Having made this necessary distinction, I proceed.--The mighty
      benefactors of mankind, as they are not only known by the
      immediate survivors, but will continue to be known familiarly to
      latest posterity, do not stand in need of biographic sketches in
      such a place; nor of delineations of character to individualise
      them. This is already done by their Works, in the memories of men.
      Their naked names, and a grand comprehensive sentiment of civic
      gratitude, patriotic love, or human admiration--or the utterance
      of some elementary principle most essential in the constitution of
      true virtue--or a declaration touching that pious humility and
      self-abasement, which are ever most profound as minds are most
      susceptible of genuine exaltation--or an intuition, communicated
      in adequate words, of the sublimity of intellectual power;--these
      are the only tribute which can here be paid--the only offering
      that upon such an altar would not be unworthy.

            "What needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones
             The labour of an age in piled stones,
             Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
             Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
             Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame,
             What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
             Thou in our wonder and astonishment
             Hast built thyself a livelong monument,
             And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
             That kings for such a tomb would wish to die."

THE EXCURSION
BOOK SIXTH
THE CHURCHYARD AMONG THE MOUNTAINS

          HAIL to the crown by Freedom shaped--to gird
          An English Sovereign's brow! and to the throne
          Whereon he sits! Whose deep foundations lie
          In veneration and the people's love;
          Whose steps are equity, whose seat is law.
          --Hail to the State of England! And conjoin
          With this a salutation as devout,
          Made to the spiritual fabric of her Church;
          Founded in truth; by blood of Martyrdom
          Cemented; by the hands of Wisdom reared                     10
          In beauty of holiness, with ordered pomp,
          Decent and unreproved. The voice, that greets
          The majesty of both, shall pray for both;
          That, mutually protected and sustained,
          They may endure long as the sea surrounds
          This favoured Land, or sunshine warms her soil.

            And O, ye swelling hills, and spacious plains
          Besprent from shore to shore with steeple-towers,
          And spires whose 'silent finger points to heaven;'
          Nor wanting, at wide intervals, the bulk                    20
          Of ancient minster lifted above the cloud
          Of the dense air, which town or city breeds
          To intercept the sun's glad beams--may ne'er
          That true succession fail of English hearts,
          Who, with ancestral feeling, can perceive
          What in those holy structures ye possess
          Of ornamental interest, and the charm
          Of pious sentiment diffused afar,
          And human charity, and social love.
          --Thus never shall the indignities of time                  30
          Approach their reverend graces, unopposed;
          Nor shall the elements be free to hurt
          Their fair proportions; nor the blinder rage
          Of bigot zeal madly to overturn;
          And, if the desolating hand of war
          Spare them, they shall continue to bestow
          Upon the thronged abodes of busy men
          (Depraved, and ever prone to fill the mind
          Exclusively with transitory things)
          An air and mien of dignified pursuit;                       40
          Of sweet civility, on rustic wilds.

            The Poet, fostering for his native land
          Such hope, entreats that servants may abound
          Of those pure altars worthy; ministers
          Detached from pleasure, to the love of gain
          Superior, insusceptible of pride,
          And by ambitious longings undisturbed;
          Men, whose delight is where their duty leads
          Or fixes them; whose least distinguished day
          Shines with some portion of that heavenly lustre            50
          Which makes the sabbath lovely in the sight
          Of blessed angels, pitying human cares.
          --And, as on earth it is the doom of truth
          To be perpetually attacked by foes
          Open or covert, be that priesthood still,
          For her defence, replenished with a band
          Of strenuous champions, in scholastic arts
          Thoroughly disciplined; nor (if in course
          Of the revolving world's disturbances
          Cause should recur, which righteous Heaven avert!           60
          To meet such trial) from their spiritual sires
          Degenerate; who, constrained to wield the sword
          Of disputation, shrunk not, though assailed
          With hostile din, and combating in sight
          Of angry umpires, partial and unjust;
          And did, thereafter, bathe their hands in fire,
          So to declare the conscience satisfied:
          Nor for their bodies would accept release;
          But, blessing God and praising him, bequeathed
          With their last breath, from out the smouldering flame,     70
          The faith which they by diligence had earned,
          Or, through illuminating grace, received,
          For their dear countrymen, and all mankind.
          O high example, constancy divine!

            Even such a Man (inheriting the zeal
          And from the sanctity of elder times
          Not deviating,--a priest, the like of whom
          If multiplied, and in their stations set,
          Would o'er the bosom of a joyful land
          Spread true religion and her genuine fruits)                80
          Before me stood that day; on holy ground
          Fraught with the relics of mortality,
          Exalting tender themes, by just degrees
          To lofty raised; and to the highest, last;
          The head and mighty paramount of truths,--
          Immortal life, in never-fading worlds,
          For mortal creatures, conquered and secured.

            That basis laid, those principles of faith
          Announced, as a preparatory act
          Of reverence done to the spirit of the place,               90
          The Pastor cast his eyes upon the ground;
          Not, as before, like one oppressed with awe
          But with a mild and social cheerfulness;
          Then to the Solitary turned, and spake.

            "At morn or eve, in your retired domain,
          Perchance you not unfrequently have marked
          A Visitor--in quest of herbs and flowers;
          Too delicate employ, as would appear,
          For one, who, though of drooping mien, had yet
          From nature's kindliness received a frame                  100
          Robust as ever rural labour bred."

            The Solitary answered: "Such a Form
          Full well I recollect. We often crossed
          Each other's path; but, as the Intruder seemed
          Fondly to prize the silence which he kept,
          And I as willingly did cherish mine,
          We met, and passed, like shadows. I have heard,
          From my good Host, that being crazed in brain
          By unrequited love, he scaled the rocks,
          Dived into caves, and pierced the matted woods,            110
          In hope to find some virtuous herb of power
          To cure his malady!"
                                The Vicar smiled,--
          "Alas! before to-morrow's sun goes down
          His habitation will be here: for him
          That open grave is destined."
                                         "Died he then
          Of pain and grief?" the Solitary asked,
          "Do not believe it; never could that be!"

            "He loved," the Vicar answered, "deeply loved,
          Loved fondly, truly, fervently; and dared
          At length to tell his love, but sued in vain;              120
          Rejected, yea repelled; and, if with scorn
          Upon the haughty maiden's brow, 'tis but
          A high-prized plume which female Beauty wears
          In wantonness of conquest, or puts on
          To cheat the world, or from herself to hide
          Humiliation, when no longer free.
          'That' he could brook, and glory in;--but when
          The tidings came that she whom he had wooed
          Was wedded to another, and his heart
          Was forced to rend away its only hope;                     130
          Then, Pity could have scarcely found on earth
          An object worthier of regard than he,
          In the transition of that bitter hour!
          Lost was she, lost; nor could the Sufferer say
          That in the act of preference he had been
          Unjustly dealt with; but the Maid was gone!
          Had vanished from his prospects and desires;
          Not by translation to the heavenly choir
          Who have put off their mortal spoils--ah no!
          She lives another's wishes to complete,--                  140
          'Joy be their lot, and happiness,' he cried,
          'His lot and hers, as misery must be mine!'

            Such was that strong concussion; but the Man,
          Who trembled, trunk and limbs, like some huge oak
          By a fierce tempest shaken, soon resumed
          The stedfast quiet natural to a mind
          Of composition gentle and sedate,
          And, in its movements, circumspect and slow.
          To books, and to the long-forsaken desk,
          O'er which enchained by science he had loved               150
          To bend, he stoutly re-addressed himself,
          Resolved to quell his pain, and search for truth
          With keener appetite (if that might be)
          And closer industry. Of what ensued
          Within the heart no outward sign appeared
          Till a betraying sickliness was seen
          To tinge his cheek; and through his frame it crept
          With slow mutation unconcealable;
          Such universal change as autumn makes
          In the fair body of a leafy grove,                         160
          Discoloured, then divested.
                                      'Tis affirmed
          By poets skilled in nature's secret ways
          That Love will not submit to be controlled
          By mastery:--and the good Man lacked not friends
          Who strove to instil this truth into his mind,
          A mind in all heart-mysteries unversed.
          'Go to the hills,' said one, 'remit a while
          'This baneful diligence:--at early morn
          'Court the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods;
          'And, leaving it to others to foretell,                    170
          'By calculations sage, the ebb and flow
          'Of tides, and when the moon will be eclipsed,
          'Do you, for your own benefit, construct
          'A calendar of flowers, plucked as they blow
          'Where health abides, and cheerfulness, and peace.'
          The attempt was made;--'tis needless to report
          How hopelessly; but innocence is strong,
          And an entire simplicity of mind
          A thing most sacred in the eye of Heaven;
          That opens, for such sufferers, relief                     180
          Within the soul, fountains of grace divine;
          And doth commend their weakness and disease
          To Nature's care, assisted in her office
          By all the elements that round her wait
          To generate, to preserve, and to restore;
          And by her beautiful array of forms
          Shedding sweet influence from above; or pure
          Delight exhaling from the ground they tread."

            "Impute it not to impatience, if," exclaimed
          The Wanderer, "I infer that he was healed                  190
          By perseverance in the course prescribed."

            "You do not err: the powers, that had been lost
          By slow degrees, were gradually regained;
          The fluttering nerves composed; the beating heart
          In rest established; and the jarring thoughts
          To harmony restored.--But yon dark mould
          Will cover him, in the fulness of his strength,
          Hastily smitten by a fever's force;
          Yet not with stroke so sudden as refused
          Time to look back with tenderness on her                   200
          Whom he had loved in passion; and to send
          Some farewell words--with one, but one, request;
          That, from his dying hand, she would accept
          Of his possessions that which most he prized;
          A book, upon whose leaves some chosen plants,
          By his own hand disposed with nicest care,
          In undecaying beauty were preserved;
          Mute register, to him, of time and place,
          And various fluctuations in the breast;
          To her, a monument of faithful love                        210
          Conquered, and in tranquillity retained!

            Close to his destined habitation, lies
          One who achieved a humbler victory,
          Though marvellous in its kind. A place there is
          High in these mountains, that allured a band
          Of keen adventurers to unite their pains
          In search of precious ore: they tried, were foiled--
          And all desisted, all, save him alone.
          He, taking counsel of his own clear thoughts,
          And trusting only to his own weak hands,                   220
          Urged unremittingly the stubborn work,
          Unseconded, uncountenanced; then, as time
          Passed on, while still his lonely efforts found
          No recompense, derided; and at length,
          By many pitied, as insane of mind;
          By others dreaded as the luckless thrall
          Of subterranean Spirits feeding hope
          By various mockery of sight and sound;
          Hope after hope, encouraged and destroyed.
          --But when the lord of seasons had matured                 230
          The fruits of earth through space of twice ten years,
          The mountain's entrails offered to his view
          And trembling grasp the long-deferred reward.
          Not with more transport did Columbus greet
          A world, his rich discovery! But our Swain,
          A very hero till his point was gained,
          Proved all unable to support the weight
          Of prosperous fortune. On the fields he looked
          With an unsettled liberty of thought,
          Wishes and endless schemes; by daylight walked             240
          Giddy and restless; ever and anon
          Quaffed in his gratitude immoderate cups;
          And truly might be said to die of joy!
          He vanished; but conspicuous to this day
          The path remains that linked his cottage-door
          To the mine's mouth; a long and slanting track,
          Upon the rugged mountain's stony side,
          Worn by his daily visits to and from
          The darksome centre of a constant hope.
          This vestige, neither force of beating rain,               250
          Nor the vicissitudes of frost and thaw
          Shall cause to fade, till ages pass away;
          And it is named, in memory of the event,
          The PATH OF PERSEVERANCE."
                                      "Thou from whom
          Man has his strength," exclaimed the Wanderer, "oh!
          Do thou direct it! To the virtuous grant
          The penetrative eye which can perceive
          In this blind world the guiding vein of hope;
          That, like this Labourer, such may dig their way,
          'Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified;'                        260
          Grant to the wise 'his' firmness of resolve!"

            "That prayer were not superfluous," said the Priest,
          "Amid the noblest relics, proudest dust,
          That Westminster, for Britain's glory, holds
          Within the bosom of her awful pile,
          Ambitiously collected. Yet the sigh,
          Which wafts that prayer to heaven, is due to all,
          Wherever laid, who living fell below
          Their virtue's humbler mark; a sigh of 'pain'
          If to the opposite extreme they sank.                      270
          How would you pity her who yonder rests;
          Him, farther off; the pair, who here are laid;
          But, above all, that mixture of earth's mould
          Whom sight of this green hillock to my mind
          Recalls!
                    'He' lived not till his locks were nipped
          By seasonable frost of age; nor died
          Before his temples, prematurely forced
          To mix the manly brown with silver grey,
          Gave obvious instance of the sad effect
          Produced, when thoughtless Folly hath usurped              280
          The natural crown that sage Experience wears.
          Gay, volatile, ingenious, quick to learn,
          And prompt to exhibit all that he possessed
          Or could perform; a zealous actor, hired
          Into the troop of mirth, a soldier, sworn
          Into the lists of giddy enterprise--
          Such was he; yet, as if within his frame
          Two several souls alternately had lodged,
          Two sets of manners could the Youth put on;
          And, fraught with antics as the Indian bird                290
          That writhes and chatters in her wiry cage,
          Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still
          As the mute swan that floats adown the stream,
          Or, on the waters of the unruffled lake,
          Anchors her placid beauty. Not a leaf,
          That flutters on the bough, lighter than he;
          And not a flower, that droops in the green shade,
          More winningly reserved! If ye enquire
          How such consummate elegance was bred
          Amid these wilds, this answer may suffice;                 300
          'Twas Nature's will; who sometimes undertakes,
          For the reproof of human vanity,
          Art to outstrip in her peculiar walk.
          Hence, for this Favourite--lavishly endowed
          With personal gifts, and bright instinctive wit,
          While both, embellishing each other, stood
          Yet farther recommended by the charm
          Of fine demeanour, and by dance and song,
          And skill in letters--every fancy shaped
          Fair expectations; nor, when to the world's                310
          Capacious field forth went the Adventurer, there
          Were he and his attainments overlooked,
          Or scantily rewarded; but all hopes,
          Cherished for him, he suffered to depart,
          Like blighted buds; or clouds that mimicked land
          Before the sailor's eye; or diamond drops
          That sparkling decked the morning grass; or aught
          That 'was' attractive, and hath ceased to be!

            Yet, when this Prodigal returned, the rites
          Of joyful greeting were on him bestowed,                   320
          Who, by humiliation undeterred,
          Sought for his weariness a place of rest
          Within his Father's gates.--Whence came he?--clothed
          In tattered garb, from hovels where abides
          Necessity, the stationary host
          Of vagrant poverty; from rifted barns
          Where no one dwells but the wide-staring owl
          And the owl's prey; from these bare haunts, to which
          He had descended from the proud saloon,
          He came, the ghost of beauty and of health,                330
          The wreck of gaiety! But soon revived
          In strength, in power refitted, he renewed
          His suit to Fortune; and she smiled again
          Upon a fickle Ingrate. Thrice he rose,
          Thrice sank as willingly. For he--whose nerves
          Were used to thrill with pleasure, while his voice
          Softly accompanied the tuneful harp,
          By the nice finger of fair ladies touched
          In glittering halls--was able to derive
          No less enjoyment from an abject choice.                   340
          Who happier for the moment--who more blithe
          Than this fallen Spirit? in those dreary holds
          His talents lending to exalt the freaks
          Of merry-making beggars,--nor provoked
          To laughter multiplied in louder peals
          By his malicious wit; then, all enchained
          With mute astonishment, themselves to see
          In their own arts outdone, their fame eclipsed,
          As by the very presence of the Fiend
          Who dictates and inspires illusive feats,                  350
          For knavish purposes! The city, too,
          (With shame I speak it) to her guilty bowers
          Allured him, sunk so low in self-respect
          As there to linger, there to eat his bread,
          Hired minstrel of voluptuous blandishment;
          Charming the air with skill of hand or voice,
          Listen who would, be wrought upon who might,
          Sincerely wretched hearts, or falsely gay.
          --Such the too frequent tenor of his boast
          In ears that relished the report;--but all                 360
          Was from his Parents happily concealed;
          Who saw enough for blame and pitying love.
          They also were permitted to receive
          His last, repentant breath; and closed his eyes,
          No more to open on that irksome world
          Where he had long existed in the state
          Of a young fowl beneath one mother hatched,
          Though from another sprung, different in kind:
          Where he had lived, and could not cease to live,
          Distracted in propensity; content                          370
          With neither element of good or ill;
          And yet in both rejoicing; man unblest;
          Of contradictions infinite the slave,
          Till his deliverance, when Mercy made him
          One with himself, and one with them that sleep."

            "'Tis strange," observed the Solitary, "strange
          It seems, and scarcely less than pitiful,
          That in a land where charity provides
          For all that can no longer feed themselves,
          A man like this should choose to bring his shame           380
          To the parental door; and with his sighs
          Infect the air which he had freely breathed
          In happy infancy. He could not pine,
          Through lack of converse; no--he must have found
          Abundant exercise for thought and speech,
          In his dividual being, self-reviewed,
          Self-catechised, self-punished.--Some there are
          Who, drawing near their final home, and much
          And daily longing that the same were reached,
          Would rather shun than seek the fellowship                 390
          Of kindred mould.--Such haply here are laid?"

            "Yes," said the Priest, "the Genius of our hills--
          Who seems, by these stupendous barriers cast
          Round his domain, desirous not alone
          To keep his own, but also to exclude
          All other progeny--doth sometimes lure,
          Even by his studied depth of privacy,
          The unhappy alien hoping to obtain
          Concealment, or seduced by wish to find,
          In place from outward molestation free,                    400
          Helps to internal ease. Of many such
          Could I discourse; but as their stay was brief,
          So their departure only left behind
          Fancies, and loose conjectures. Other trace
          Survives, for worthy mention, of a pair
          Who, from the pressure of their several fates,
          Meeting as strangers, in a petty town
          Whose blue roofs ornament a distant reach
          Of this far-winding vale, remained as friends
          True to their choice; and gave their bones in trust        410
          To this loved cemetery, here to lodge
          With unescutcheoned privacy interred
          Far from the family vault.--A Chieftain one
          By right of birth; within whose spotless breast
          The fire of ancient Caledonia burned:
          He, with the foremost whose impatience hailed
          The Stuart, landing to resume, by force
          Of arms, the crown which bigotry had lost,
          Aroused his clan; and, fighting at their head,
          With his brave sword endeavoured to prevent                420
          Culloden's fatal overthrow. Escaped
          From that disastrous rout, to foreign shores
          He fled; and when the lenient hand of time
          Those troubles had appeased, he sought and gained,
          For his obscured condition, an obscure
          Retreat, within this nook of English ground.

            The other, born in Britain's southern tract,
          Had fixed his milder loyalty, and placed
          His gentler sentiments of love and hate,
          There, where 'they' placed them who in conscience prized   430
          The new succession, as a line of kings
          Whose oath had virtue to protect the land
          Against the dire assaults of papacy
          And arbitrary rule. But launch thy bark
          On the distempered flood of public life,
          And cause for most rare triumph will be thine
          If, spite of keenest eye and steadiest hand,
          The stream, that bears thee forward, prove not, soon
          Or late, a perilous master. He--who oft,
          Beneath the battlements and stately trees                  440
          That round his mansion cast a sober gloom,
          Had moralised on this, and other truths
          Of kindred import, pleased and satisfied--
          Was forced to vent his wisdom with a sigh
          Heaved from the heart in fortune's bitterness,
          When he had crushed a plentiful estate
          By ruinous contest, to obtain a seat
          In Britain's senate. Fruitless was the attempt;
          And while the uproar of that desperate strife
          Continued yet to vibrate on his ear,                       450
          The vanquished Whig, under a borrowed name,
          (For the mere sound and echo of his own
          Haunted him with sensations of disgust
          That he was glad to lose) slunk from the world
          To the deep shade of those untravelled Wilds;
          In which the Scottish Laird had long possessed
          An undisturbed abode. Here, then, they met,
          Two doughty champions; flaming Jacobite
          And sullen Hanoverian! You might think
          That losses and vexations, less severe                     460
          Than those which they had severally sustained,
          Would have inclined each to abate his zeal
          For his ungrateful cause; no,--I have heard
          My reverend Father tell that, 'mid the calm
          Of that small town encountering thus, they filled,
          Daily, its bowling-green with harmless strife;
          Plagued with uncharitable thoughts the church;
          And vexed the market-place. But in the breasts
          Of these opponents gradually was wrought,
          With little change of general sentiment,                   470
          Such leaning towards each other, that their days
          By choice were spent in constant fellowship;
          And if, at times, they fretted with the yoke,
          Those very bickerings made them love it more.

            A favourite boundary to their lengthened walks
          This Churchyard was. And, whether they had come
          Treading their path in sympathy and linked
          In social converse, or by some short space
          Discreetly parted to preserve the peace,
          One spirit seldom failed to extend its sway                480
          Over both minds, when they awhile had marked
          The visible quiet of this holy ground,
          And breathed its soothing air:--the spirit of hope
          And saintly magnanimity; that--spurning
          The field of selfish difference and dispute,
          And every care which transitory things,
          Earth and the kingdoms of the earth, create--
          Doth, by a rapture of forgetfulness,
          Preclude forgiveness, from the praise debarred,
          Which else the Christian virtue might have claimed.        490

            There live who yet remember here to have seen
          Their courtly figures, seated on the stump
          Of an old yew, their favourite resting-place.
          But as the remnant of the long-lived tree
          Was disappearing by a swift decay,
          They, with joint care, determined to erect,
          Upon its site, a dial, that might stand
          For public use preserved, and thus survive
          As their own private monument: for this
          Was the particular spot, in which they wished              500
          (And Heaven was pleased to accomplish the desire)
          That, undivided, their remains should lie.
          So, where the mouldered tree had stood, was raised
          Yon structure, framing, with the ascent of steps
          That to the decorated pillar lead,
          A work of art more sumptuous than might seem
          To suit this place; yet built in no proud scorn
          Of rustic homeliness; they only aimed
          To ensure for it respectful guardianship.
          Around the margin of the plate, whereon                    510
          The shadow falls to note the stealthy hours,
          Winds an inscriptive legend."--At these words
          Thither we turned; and gathered, as we read,
          The appropriate sense, in Latin numbers couched:
          'Time flies; it is his melancholy task,
          To bring, and bear away, delusive hopes,
          And re-produce the troubles he destroys.
          But, while his blindness thus is occupied,
          Discerning Mortal! do thou serve the will
          Of Time's eternal Master, and that peace,                  520
          Which the world wants, shall be for thee confirmed!'

            "Smooth verse, inspired by no unlettered Muse,"
          Exclaimed the Sceptic, "and the strain of thought
          Accords with nature's language;--the soft voice
          Of yon white torrent falling down the rocks
          Speaks, less distinctly, to the same effect.
          If, then, their blended influence be not lost
          Upon our hearts, not wholly lost, I grant,
          Even upon mine, the more are we required
          To feel for those among our fellow-men,                    530
          Who, offering no obeisance to the world,
          Are yet made desperate by 'too quick a sense
          Of constant infelicity,' cut off
          From peace like exiles on some barren rock,
          Their life's appointed prison; not more free
          Than sentinels, between two armies, set,
          With nothing better, in the chill night air,
          Than their own thoughts to comfort them. Say why
          That ancient story of Prometheus chained
          To the bare rock on frozen Caucasus;                       540
          The vulture, the inexhaustible repast
          Drawn from his vitals? Say what meant the woes
          By Tantalus entailed upon his race,
          And the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes?
          Fictions in form, but in their substance truths,
          Tremendous truths! familiar to the men
          Of long-past times, nor obsolete in ours.
          Exchange the shepherd's frock of native grey
          For robes with regal purple tinged; convert
          The crook into a sceptre; give the pomp                    550
          Of circumstance; and here the tragic Muse
          Shall find apt subjects for her highest art.
          Amid the groves, under the shadowy hills,
          The generations are prepared; the pangs,
          The internal pangs, are ready; the dread strife
          Of poor humanity's afflicted will
          Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny."

            "Though," said the Priest in answer, "these be terms
          Which a divine philosophy rejects,
          We, whose established and unfailing trust                  560
          Is in controlling Providence, admit
          That, through all stations, human life abounds
          With mysteries;--for, if Faith were left untried,
          How could the might, that lurks within her, then
          Be shown? her glorious excellence--that ranks
          Among the first of Powers and Virtues--proved?
          Our system is not fashioned to preclude
          That sympathy which you for others ask;
          And I could tell, not travelling for my theme
          Beyond these humble graves, of grievous crimes             570
          And strange disasters; but I pass them by,
          Loth to disturb what Heaven hath hushed in peace.
          --Still less, far less, am I inclined to treat
          Of Man degraded in his Maker's sight
          By the deformities of brutish vice:
          For, in such portraits, though a vulgar face
          And a coarse outside of repulsive life
          And unaffecting manners might at once
          Be recognised by all"--"Ah! do not think,"
          The Wanderer somewhat eagerly exclaimed,                   580
          "Wish could be ours that you, for such poor gain,
          (Gain shall I call it?--gain of what?--for whom?)
          Should breathe a word tending to violate
          Your own pure spirit. Not a step we look for
          In slight of that forbearance and reserve
          Which common human-heartedness inspires,
          And mortal ignorance and frailty claim,
          Upon this sacred ground, if nowhere else."

            "True," said the Solitary, "be it far
          From us to infringe the laws of charity.                   590
          Let judgment here in mercy be pronounced;
          This, self-respecting Nature prompts, and this
          Wisdom enjoins; but if the thing we seek
          Be genuine knowledge, bear we then in mind
          How, from his lofty throne, the sun can fling
          Colours as bright on exhalations bred
          By weedy pool or pestilential swamp,
          As by the rivulet sparkling where it runs,
          Or the pellucid lake."
                                  "Small risk," said I,
          "Of such illusion do we here incur;                        600
          Temptation here is none to exceed the truth;
          No evidence appears that they who rest
          Within this ground, were covetous of praise,
          Or of remembrance even, deserved or not.
          Green is the Churchyard, beautiful and green,
          Ridge rising gently by the side of ridge,
          A heaving surface, almost wholly free
          From interruption of sepulchral stones,
          And mantled o'er with aboriginal turf
          And everlasting flowers. These Dalesmen trust              610
          The lingering gleam of their departed lives
          To oral record, and the silent heart;
          Depositories faithful and more kind
          Than fondest epitaph: for, if those fail,
          What boots the sculptured tomb? And who can blame,
          Who rather would not envy, men that feel
          This mutual confidence; if, from such source,
          The practice flow,--if thence, or from a deep
          And general humility in death?
          Nor should I much condemn it, if it spring                 620
          From disregard of time's destructive power,
          As only capable to prey on things
          Of earth, and human nature's mortal part.

            Yet--in less simple districts, where we see
          Stone lift its forehead emulous of stone
          In courting notice; and the ground all paved
          With commendations of departed worth;
          Reading, where'er we turn, of innocent lives,
          Of each domestic charity fulfilled,
          And sufferings meekly borne--I, for my part,               630
          Though with the silence pleased that here prevails,
          Among those fair recitals also range,
          Soothed by the natural spirit which they breathe.
          And, in the centre of a world whose soil
          Is rank with all unkindness, compassed round
          With such memorials, I have sometimes felt,
          It was no momentary happiness
          To have 'one' Enclosure where the voice that speaks
          In envy or detraction is not heard;
          Which malice may not enter; where the traces               640
          Of evil inclinations are unknown;
          Where love and pity tenderly unite
          With resignation; and no jarring tone
          Intrudes, the peaceful concert to disturb
          Of amity and gratitude."
                                    "Thus sanctioned,"
          The Pastor said, "I willingly confine
          My narratives to subjects that excite
          Feelings with these accordant; love, esteem,
          And admiration; lifting up a veil,
          A sunbeam introducing among hearts                         650
          Retired and covert; so that ye shall have
          Clear images before your gladdened eyes
          Of nature's unambitious underwood,
          And flowers that prosper in the shade. And when
          I speak of such among my flock as swerved
          Or fell, those only shall be singled out
          Upon whose lapse, or error, something more
          Than brotherly forgiveness may attend;
          To such will we restrict our notice, else
          Better my tongue were mute.
                                       And yet there are,            660
          I feel, good reasons why we should not leave
          Wholly untraced a more forbidding way.
          For, strength to persevere and to support,
          And energy to conquer and repel--
          These elements of virtue, that declare
          The native grandeur of the human soul--
          Are oft-times not unprofitably shown
          In the perverseness of a selfish course:
          Truth every day exemplified, no less
          In the grey cottage by the murmuring stream                670
          Than in fantastic conqueror's roving camp,
          Or 'mid the factious senate, unappalled
          Whoe'er may sink, or rise--to sink again,
          As merciless proscription ebbs and flows.

            There," said the Vicar, pointing as he spake,
          "A woman rests in peace; surpassed by few
          In power of mind, and eloquent discourse.
          Tall was her stature; her complexion dark
          And saturnine; her head not raised to hold
          Converse with heaven, nor yet deprest towards earth,       680
          But in projection carried, as she walked
          For ever musing. Sunken were her eyes;
          Wrinkled and furrowed with habitual thought
          Was her broad forehead; like the brow of one
          Whose visual nerve shrinks from a painful glare
          Of overpowering light.--While yet a child,
          She, 'mid the humble flowerets of the vale,
          Towered like the imperial thistle, not unfurnished
          With its appropriate grace, yet rather seeking
          To be admired, than coveted and loved.                     690
          Even at that age she ruled, a sovereign queen,
          Over her comrades; else their simple sports,
          Wanting all relish for her strenuous mind,
          Had crossed her only to be shunned with scorn,
          --Oh! pang of sorrowful regret for those
          Whom, in their youth, sweet study has enthralled,
          That they have lived for harsher servitude,
          Whether in soul, in body, or estate!
          Such doom was hers; yet nothing could subdue
          Her keen desire of knowledge, nor efface                   700
          Those brighter images by books imprest
          Upon her memory, faithfully as stars
          That occupy their places, and, though oft
          Hidden by clouds, and oft bedimmed by haze,
          Are not to be extinguished, nor impaired.

            Two passions, both degenerate, for they both
          Began in honour, gradually obtained
          Rule over her, and vexed her daily life;
          An unremitting, avaricious thrift;
          And a strange thraldom of maternal love,                   710
          That held her spirit, in its own despite,
          Bound--by vexation, and regret, and scorn,
          Constrained forgiveness, and relenting vows,
          And tears, in pride suppressed, in shame concealed--
          To a poor

THE EXCURSION
BOOK SEVENTH
THE CHURCHYARD AMONG THE MOUNTAINS--(continued)

          WHILE thus from theme to theme the Historian passed,
          The words he uttered, and the scene that lay
          Before our eyes, awakened in my mind
          Vivid remembrance of those long-past hours;
          When, in the hollow of some shadowy vale,
          (What time the splendour of the setting sun
          Lay beautiful on Snowdon's sovereign brow,
          On Cader Idris, or huge Penmanmaur)
          A wandering Youth, I listened with delight
          To pastoral melody or warlike air,                          10
          Drawn from the chords of the ancient British harp
          By some accomplished Master, while he sate
          Amid the quiet of the green recess,
          And there did inexhaustibly dispense
          An interchange of soft or solemn tunes,
          Tender or blithe; now, as the varying mood
          Of his own spirit urged,--now, as a voice
          From youth or maiden, or some honoured chief
          Of his compatriot villagers (that hung
          Around him, drinking in the impassioned notes               20
          Of the time-hallowed minstrelsy) required
          For their heart's ease or pleasure. Strains of power
          Were they, to seize and occupy the sense;
          But to a higher mark than song can reach
          Rose this pure eloquence. And, when the stream
          Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
          A consciousness remained that it had left,
          Deposited upon the silent shore
          Of memory, images and precious thoughts,
          That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.                30

            "These grassy heaps lie amicably close,"
          Said I, "like surges heaving in the wind
          Along the surface of a mountain pool:
          Whence comes it, then, that yonder we behold
          Five graves, and only five, that rise together
          Unsociably sequestered, and encroaching
          On the smooth playground of the village-school?"

            The Vicar answered,--"No disdainful pride
          In them who rest beneath, nor any course
          Of strange or tragic accident, hath helped                  40
          To place those hillocks in that lonely guise.
          --Once more look forth, and follow with your sight
          The length of road that from yon mountain's base
          Through bare enclosures stretches, 'till its line
          Is lost within a little tuft of trees;
          Then, reappearing in a moment, quits
          The cultured fields; and up the heathy waste,
          Mounts, as you see, in mazes serpentine,
          Led towards an easy outlet of the vale.
          That little shady spot, that sylvan tuft,                   50
          By which the road is hidden, also hides
          A cottage from our view; though I discern
          (Ye scarcely can) amid its sheltering trees
          The smokeless chimney-top.--
                                        All unembowered
          And naked stood that lowly Parsonage
          (For such in truth it is, and appertains
          To a small Chapel in the vale beyond)
          When hither came its last Inhabitant.
          Rough and forbidding were the choicest roads
          By which our northern wilds could then be crossed;          60
          And into most of these secluded vales
          Was no access for wain, heavy or light.
          So, at his dwelling-place the Priest arrived
          With store of household goods, in panniers slung
          On sturdy horses graced with jingling bells,
          And on the back of more ignoble beast;
          That, with like burthen of effects most prized
          Or easiest carried, closed the motley train.
          Young was I then, a schoolboy of eight years;
          But still, methinks, I see them as they passed              70
          In order, drawing toward their wished-for home.
          --Rocked by the motion of a trusty ass
          Two ruddy children hung, a well-poised freight,
          Each in his basket nodding drowsily;
          Their bonnets, I remember, wreathed with flowers,
          Which told it was the pleasant month of June;
          And, close behind, the comely Matron rode,
          A woman of soft speech and gracious smile,
          And with a lady's mien.--From far they came,
          Even from Northumbrian hills; yet theirs had been           80
          A merry journey, rich in pastime, cheered
          By music, prank, and laughter-stirring jest;
          And freak put on, and arch word dropped--to swell
          The cloud of fancy and uncouth surmise
          That gathered round the slowly-moving train.
          --'Whence do they come? and with what errand charged?
          'Belong they to the fortune-telling tribe
          'Who pitch their tents under the greenwood tree?
          'Or Strollers are they, furnished to enact
          'Fair Rosamond, and the Children of the Wood,               90
          'And, by that whiskered tabby's aid, set forth
          'The lucky venture of sage Whittington,
          'When the next village hears the show announced
          'By blast of trumpet?' Plenteous was the growth
          Of such conjectures, overheard, or seen
          On many a staring countenance portrayed
          Of boor or burgher, as they marched along.
          And more than once their steadiness of face
          Was put to proof, and exercise supplied
          To their inventive humour, by stern looks,                 100
          And questions in authoritative tone,
          From some staid guardian of the public peace,
          Checking the sober steed on which he rode,
          In his suspicious wisdom; oftener still,
          By notice indirect, or blunt demand
          From traveller halting in his own despite,
          A simple curiosity to ease:
          Of which adventures, that beguiled and cheered
          Their grave migration, the good pair would tell,
          With undiminished glee, in hoary age.                      110

            A Priest he was by function; but his course
          From his youth up, and high as manhood's noon,
          (The hour of life to which he then was brought)
          Had been irregular, I might say, wild;
          By books unsteadied, by his pastoral care
          Too little checked. An active, ardent mind;
          A fancy pregnant with resource and scheme
          To cheat the sadness of a rainy day;
          Hands apt for all ingenious arts and games;
          A generous spirit, and a body strong                       120
          To cope with stoutest champions of the bowl--
          Had earned for him sure welcome, and the rights
          Of a prized visitant, in the jolly hall
          Of country 'squire; or at the statelier board
          Of duke or earl, from scenes of courtly pomp
          Withdrawn,--to while away the summer hours
          In condescension among rural guests.

            With these high comrades he had revelled long,
          Frolicked industriously, a simple Clerk
          By hopes of coming patronage beguiled                      130
          Till the heart sickened. So, each loftier aim
          Abandoning and all his showy friends,
          For a life's stay (slender it was, but sure)
          He turned to this secluded chapelry;
          That had been offered to his doubtful choice
          By an unthought-of patron. Bleak and bare
          They found the cottage, their allotted home;
          Naked without, and rude within; a spot
          With which the Cure not long had been endowed:
          And far remote the chapel stood,--remote,                  140
          And, from his Dwelling, unapproachable,
          Save through a gap high in the hills, an opening
          Shadeless and shelterless, by driving showers
          Frequented, and beset with howling winds.
          Yet cause was none, whate'er regret might hang
          On his own mind, to quarrel with the choice
          Or the necessity that fixed him here;
          Apart from old temptations, and constrained
          To punctual labour in his sacred charge.
          See him a constant preacher to the poor!                   150
          And visiting, though not with saintly zeal,
          Yet, when need was, with no reluctant will,
          The sick in body, or distrest in mind;
          And, by a salutary change, compelled
          To rise from timely sleep, and meet the day
          With no engagement, in his thoughts, more proud
          Or splendid than his garden could afford,
          His fields, or mountains by the heath-cock ranged
          Or the wild brooks; from which he now returned
          Contented to partake the quiet meal                        160
          Of his own board, where sat his gentle Mate
          And three fair Children, plentifully fed
          Though simply, from their little household farm;
          Nor wanted timely treat of fish or fowl
          By nature yielded to his practised hand;--
          To help the small but certain comings-in
          Of that spare benefice. Yet not the less
          Theirs was a hospitable board, and theirs
          A charitable door.
                              So days and years
          Passed on;--the inside of that rugged house                170
          Was trimmed and brightened by the Matron's care,
          And gradually enriched with things of price,
          Which might be lacked for use or ornament.
          What, though no soft and costly sofa there
          Insidiously stretched out its lazy length,
          And no vain mirror glittered upon the walls,
          Yet were the windows of the low abode
          By shutters weather-fended, which at once
          Repelled the storm and deadened its loud roar.
          There snow-white curtains hung in decent folds;            180
          Tough moss, and long-enduring mountain plants,
          That creep along the ground with sinuous trail,
          Were nicely braided; and composed a work
          Like Indian mats, that with appropriate grace
          Lay at the threshold and the inner doors;
          And a fair carpet, woven of homespun wool
          But tinctured daintily with florid hues,
          For seemliness and warmth, on festal days,
          Covered the smooth blue slabs of mountain-stone
          With which the parlour-floor, in simplest guise            190
          Of pastoral homesteads, had been long inlaid.

            Those pleasing works the Housewife's skill produced:
          Meanwhile the unsedentary Master's hand
          Was busier with his task--to rid, to plant,
          To rear for food, for shelter, and delight;
          A thriving covert! And when wishes, formed
          In youth, and sanctioned by the riper mind,
          Restored me to my native valley, here
          To end my days; well pleased was I to see
          The once-bare cottage, on the mountainside,                200
          Screened from assault of every bitter blast;
          While the dark shadows of the summer leaves
          Danced in the breeze, chequering its mossy roof.
          Time, which had thus afforded willing help
          To beautify with nature's fairest growths
          This rustic tenement, had gently shed,
          Upon its Master's frame, a wintry grace;
          The comeliness of unenfeebled age.

            But how could I say, gently? for he still
          Retained a flashing eye, a burning palm,                   210
          A stirring foot, a head which beat at nights
          Upon its pillow with a thousand schemes.
          Few likings had he dropped, few pleasures lost;
          Generous and charitable, prompt to serve;
          And still his harsher passions kept their hold--
          Anger and indignation. Still he loved
          The sound of titled names, and talked in glee
          Of long-past banquetings with high-born friends:
          Then, from those lulling fits of vain delight
          Uproused by recollected injury, railed                     220
          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 good-will,
          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                      230
          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,        240
          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,                     250
          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 Son,                 260
          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              270
          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                     280
          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                        290
          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                    300
          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             310
          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,           320
          And conquest 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                           330
          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          340
          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;               350
          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."                 360

            The Pastor, pressed by thoughts which round his theme
          Still lingered, 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                   370
          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,              380
          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 repine?
          The memory of the just survives in heaven:
          And, without sorrow, will the ground receive
          That venerable clay. Meanwhile the best                    390
          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 towards me, like a long straight path
          Traced faintly in the greensward; there, beneath
          A plain blue stone, a gentle Dalesman lies,                400
          From whom, in early childhood, was withdrawn
          The precious gift of hearing. He grew up
          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 stormy winds
          Were working the broad bosom of the lake                   410
          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 rural labours; the steep mountain-side
          Ascended, with his staff and faithful dog;                 420
          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.                   430
          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;                440
          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,                     450
          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,
          To no perverse suspicion he gave way,
          No languor, peevishness, nor vain complaint:
          And they, who were about him, did not fail
          In reverence, or in courtesy; they prized
          His gentle manners: and his peaceful smiles,               460
          The gleams of his slow-varying countenance,
          Were met with answering sympathy and love.

            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;              470
          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,               480
          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.                  490
          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              500
          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,               510
          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.            520
          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.                     530
          Unto the men who see not as we see
          Futurity was thought, in ancient times,
          To be laid open, and they prophesied.
          And know we not that from the blind have flowed
          The highest, holiest, raptures of the lyre;
          And wisdom married to immortal verse?"

            Among the humbler Worthies, at our feet
          Lying insensible to human praise,
          Love, or regret,--'whose' lineaments would next
          Have been portrayed, I guess not; but it chanced           540
          That, near the quiet churchyard where we sate,
          A team of horses, with a ponderous freight
          Pressing behind, adown a rugged slope,
          Whose sharp descent confounded their array,
          Came at that moment, ringing noisily.

            "Here," said the Pastor, "do we muse, and mourn
          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:                    550
          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,                   560
          Freedom and hope; but keen, withal, and shrewd.
          His gestures note,--and hark! his tones of voice
          Are all vivacious as his mien and looks."

            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                       570
          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,                      580
          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                       590
          Towards one, whose bold contrivances and skill,
          As you have seen, bear such conspicuous part
          In works of havoc; taking from these vales,
          One after one, their proudest ornaments.
          Full oft his doings leave me to deplore
          Tall ash-tree, sown by winds, by vapours nursed,
          In the dry crannies of the pendent rocks;
          Light birch, aloft upon the horizon's edge,
          A veil of glory for the ascending moon;
          And oak whose roots by noontide dew were damped,           600
          And on whose forehead inaccessible
          The raven lodged in safety.--Many a ship
          Launched into Morecamb-bay to 'him' hath owed
          Her strong knee-timbers, and the mast that bears
          The loftiest of her pendants; He, from park
          Or forest, fetched the enormous axle-tree
          That whirls (how slow itself!) ten thousand spindles:
          And the vast engine labouring in the mine,
          Content with meaner prowess, must have lacked
          The trunk and body of its marvellous strength,             610
          If his undaunted enterprise had failed
          Among the mountain coves.
                                     Yon household fir,
          A guardian planted to fence off the blast,
          But towering high the roof above, as if
          Its humble destination were forgot--
          That sycamore, which annually holds
          Within its shade, as in a stately tent
          On all sides open to the fanning breeze,
          A grave assemblage, seated while they shear
          The fleece-encumbered flock--the JOYFUL ELM,               620
          Around whose trunk the maidens dance in May--
          And the LORD'S OAK--would plead their several rights
          In vain, if he were master of their fate;
          His sentence to the axe would doom them all.
          But, green in age and lusty as he is,
          And promising to keep his hold on earth
          Less, as might seem, in rivalship with men
          Than with the forest's more enduring growth,
          His own appointed hour will come at last;
          And, like the haughty Spoilers of the world,               630
          This keen Destroyer, in his turn, must fall.

            Now from the living pass we once again:
          From Age," the Priest continued, "turn your thoughts;
          From Age, that often unlamented drops,
          And mark that daisied hillock, three spans long!
          --Seven lusty Sons sate daily round the board
          Of Gold-rill side; and, when the hope had ceased
          Of other progeny, a Daughter then
          Was given, the crowning bounty of the whole;
          And so acknowledged with a tremulous joy                   640
          Felt to the centre of that heavenly calm
          With which by nature every mother's soul
          Is stricken in the moment when her throes
          Are ended, and her ears have heard the cry
          Which tells her that a living child is born;
          And she lies conscious, in a blissful rest,
          That the dread storm is weathered by them both.

            The Father--him at this unlooked-for gift
          A bolder transport seizes. From the side
          Of his bright hearth, and from his open door,              650
          Day after day the gladness is diffused
          To all that come, almost to all that pass;
          Invited, summoned, to partake the cheer
          Spread on the never-empty board, and drink
          Health and good wishes to his new-born girl,
          From cups replenished by his joyous hand.
          --Those seven fair brothers variously were moved
          Each by the thoughts best suited to his years:
          But most of all and with most thankful mind
          The hoary grandsire felt himself enriched;                 660
          A happiness that ebbed not, but remained
          To fill the total measure of his soul!
          --From the low tenement, his own abode,
          Whither, as to a little private cell,
          He had withdrawn from bustle, care, and noise,
          To spend the sabbath of old age in peace,
          Once every day he duteously repaired
          To rock the cradle of the slumbering babe:
          For in that female infant's name he heard
          The silent name of his departed wife;                      670
          Heart-stirring music! hourly heard that name;
          Full blest he was, 'Another Margaret Green,'
          Oft did he say, 'was come to Gold-rill side.'

            Oh! pang unthought of, as the precious boon
          Itself had been unlooked-for; oh! dire stroke
          Of desolating anguish for them all!
          --Just as the Child could totter on the floor,
          And, by some friendly finger's help up-stayed,
          Range round the garden walk, while she perchance
          Was catching at some novelty of spring,                    680
          Ground-flower, or glossy insect from its cell
          Drawn by the sunshine--at that hopeful season
          The winds of March, smiting insidiously,
          Raised in the tender passage of the throat
          Viewless obstruction; whence, all unforewarned,
          The household lost their pride and soul's delight.
          --But time hath power to soften all regrets,
          And prayer and thought can bring to worst distress
          Due resignation. Therefore, though some tears
          Fail not to spring from either Parent's eye                690
          Oft as they hear of sorrow like their own,
          Yet this departed Little-one, too long
          The innocent troubler of their quiet, sleeps
          In what may now be called a peaceful bed.

            On a bright day--so calm and bright, it seemed
          To us, with our sad spirits, heavenly-fair--
          These mountains echoed to an unknown sound;
          A volley, thrice repeated o'er the Corse
          Let down into the hollow of that grave,
          Whose shelving sides are red with naked mould.             700
          Ye rains of April, duly wet this earth!
          Spare, burning sun of midsummer, these sods,
          That they may knit together, and therewith
          Our thoughts unite in kindred quietness!
          Nor so the Valley shall forget her loss.
          Dear Youth, by young and old alike beloved,
          To me as precious as my own!--Green herbs
          May creep (I wish that they would softly creep)
          Over thy last abode, and we may pass
          Reminded less imperiously of thee;--                       710
          The ridge itself may sink into the breast
          Of earth, the great abyss, and be no more;
          Yet shall not thy remembrance leave our hearts,
          Thy image disappear!
                                The Mountain-ash
          No eye can overlook, when 'mid a grove
          Of yet unfaded trees she

THE EXCURSION
BOOK EIGHTH
THE PARSONAGE

          THE pensive Sceptic of the lonely vale
          To those acknowledgments subscribed his own,
          With a sedate compliance, which the Priest
          Failed not to notice, inly pleased, and said:--
          "If ye, by whom invited I began
          These narratives of calm and humble life,
          Be satisfied, 'tis well,--the end is gained;
          And, in return for sympathy bestowed
          And patient listening, thanks accept from me.
          --Life, death, eternity! momentous themes                   10
          Are they--and might demand a seraph's tongue,
          Were they not equal to their own support;
          And therefore no incompetence of mine
          Could do them wrong. The universal forms
          Of human nature, in a spot like this,
          Present themselves at once to all men's view:
          Ye wished for act and circumstance, that make
          The individual known and understood;
          And such as my best judgment could select
          From what the place afforded, have been given;              20
          Though apprehensions crossed me that my zeal
          To his might well be likened, who unlocks
          A cabinet stored with gems and pictures--draws
          His treasures forth, soliciting regard
          To this, and this, as worthier than the last,
          Till the spectator, who awhile was pleased
          More than the exhibitor himself, becomes
          Weary and faint, and longs to be released.
          --But let us hence! my dwelling is in sight,
          And there--"
                        At this the Solitary shrunk                   30
          With backward will; but, wanting not address
          That inward motion to disguise, he said
          To his Compatriot, smiling as he spake;
          --"The peaceable remains of this good Knight
          Would be disturbed, I fear, with wrathful scorn,
          If consciousness could reach him where he lies
          That one, albeit of these degenerate times,
          Deploring changes past, or dreading change
          Foreseen, had dared to couple, even in thought,
          The fine vocation of the sword and lance                    40
          With the gross aims and body-bending toil
          Of a poor brotherhood who walk the earth
          Pitied, and, where they are not known, despised.

            Yet, by the good Knight's leave, the two estates
          Are graced with some resemblance. Errant those,
          Exiles and wanderers--and the like are these;
          Who, with their burthen, traverse hill and dale,
          Carrying relief for nature's simple wants.
          --What though no higher recompense be sought
          Than honest maintenance, by irksome toil                    50
          Full oft procured, yet may they claim respect,
          Among the intelligent, for what this course
          Enables them to be and to perform.
          Their tardy steps give leisure to observe,
          While solitude permits the mind to feel;
          Instructs, and prompts her to supply defects
          By the division of her inward self
          For grateful converse: and to these poor men
          Nature (I but repeat your favourite boast)
          Is bountiful--go wheresoe'er they may;                      60
          Kind nature's various wealth is all their own.
          Versed in the characters of men; and bound,
          By ties of daily interest, to maintain
          Conciliatory manners and smooth speech;
          Such have been, and still are in their degree,
          Examples efficacious to refine
          Rude intercourse; apt agents to expel,
          By importation of unlooked-for arts,
          Barbarian torpor, and blind prejudice;
          Raising, through just gradation, savage life                70
          To rustic, and the rustic to urbane.
          --Within their moving magazines is lodged
          Power that comes forth to quicken and exalt
          Affections seated in the mother's breast,
          And in the lover's fancy; and to feed
          The sober sympathies of long-tried friends.
          --By these Itinerants, as experienced men,
          Counsel is given; contention they appease
          With gentle language, in remotest wilds,
          Tears wipe away, and pleasant tidings bring;                80
          Could the proud quest of chivalry do more?"

            "Happy," rejoined the Wanderer, "they who gain
          A panegyric from your generous tongue!
          But, if to these Wayfarers once pertained
          Aught of romantic interest, it is gone.
          Their purer service, in this realm at least,
          Is past for ever.--An inventive Age
          Has wrought, if not with speed of magic, yet
          To most strange issues. I have lived to mark
          A new and unforeseen creation rise                          90
          From out the labours of a peaceful Land
          Wielding her potent enginery to frame
          And to produce, with appetite as keen
          As that of war, which rests not night or day,
          Industrious to destroy! With fruitless pains
          Might one like me 'now' visit many a tract
          Which, in his youth, he trod, and trod again,
          A lone pedestrian with a scanty freight,
          Wished-for, or welcome, wheresoe'er he came--
          Among the tenantry of thorpe and vill;                     100
          Or straggling burgh, of ancient charter proud,
          And dignified by battlements and towers
          Of some stern castle, mouldering on the brow
          Of a green hill or bank of rugged stream.
          The foot-path faintly marked, the horse-track wild,
          And formidable length of plashy lane,
          (Prized avenues ere others had been shaped
          Or easier links connecting place with place)
          Have vanished--swallowed up by stately roads
          Easy and bold, that penetrate the gloom                    110
          Of Britain's farthest glens. The Earth has lent
          Her waters, Air her breezes; and the sail
          Of traffic glides with ceaseless intercourse,
          Glistening along the low and woody dale;
          Or, in its progress, on the lofty side,
          Of some bare hill, with wonder kenned from far.

            Meanwhile, at social Industry's command,
          How quick, how vast an increase! From the germ
          Of some poor hamlet, rapidly produced
          Here a huge town, continuous and compact,                  120
          Hiding the face of earth for leagues--and there,
          Where not a habitation stood before,
          Abodes of men irregularly massed
          Like trees in forests,--spread through spacious tracts,
          O'er which the smoke of unremitting fires
          Hangs permanent, and plentiful as wreaths
          Of vapour glittering in the morning sun.
          And, wheresoe'er the traveller turns his steps,
          He sees the barren wilderness erased,
          Or disappearing; triumph that proclaims                    130
          How much the mild Directress of the plough
          Owes to alliance with these new-born arts!
          --Hence is the wide sea peopled,--hence the shores
          Of Britain are resorted to by ships
          Freighted from every climate of the world
          With the world's choicest produce. Hence that sum
          Of keels that rest within her crowded ports,
          Or ride at anchor in her sounds and bays;
          That animating spectacle of sails
          That, through her inland regions, to and fro               140
          Pass with the respirations of the tide,
          Perpetual, multitudinous! Finally,
          Hence a dread arm of floating power, a voice
          Of thunder daunting those who would approach
          With hostile purposes the blessed Isle,
          Truth's consecrated residence, the seat
          Impregnable of Liberty and Peace.

            And yet, O happy Pastor of a flock
          Faithfully watched, and, by that loving care
          And Heaven's good providence, preserved from taint!        150
          With you I grieve, when on the darker side
          Of this great change I look; and there behold
          Such outrage done to nature as compels
          The indignant power to justify herself;
          Yea, to avenge her violated rights,
          For England's bane.--When soothing darkness spreads
          O'er hill and vale," the Wanderer thus expressed
          His recollections, "and the punctual stars,
          While all things else are gathering to their homes,
          Advance, and in the firmament of heaven                    160
          Glitter--but undisturbing, undisturbed;
          As if their silent company were charged
          With peaceful admonitions for the heart
          Of all-beholding Man, earth's thoughtful lord;
          Then, in full many a region, once like this
          The assured domain of calm simplicity
          And pensive quiet, an unnatural light
          Prepared for never-resting Labour's eyes
          Breaks from a many-windowed fabric huge;
          And at the appointed hour a bell is heard--                170
          Of harsher import than the curfew-knoll
          That spake the Norman Conqueror's stern behest--
          A local summons to unceasing toil!
          Disgorged are now the ministers of day;
          And, as they issue from the illumined pile,
          A fresh band meets them, at the crowded door--
          And in the courts--and where the rumbling stream,
          That turns the multitude of dizzy wheels,
          Glares, like a troubled spirit, in its bed
          Among the rocks below. Men, maidens, youths,               180
          Mother and little children, boys and girls,
          Enter, and each the wonted task resumes
          Within this temple, where is offered up
          To Gain, the master idol of the realm,
          Perpetual sacrifice. Even thus of old
          Our ancestors, within the still domain
          Of vast cathedral or conventual church,
          Their vigils kept; where tapers day and might
          On the dim altar burned continually,
          In token that the House was evermore                       190
          Watching to God. Religious men were they;
          Nor would their reason, tutored to aspire
          Above this transitory world, allow
          That there should pass a moment of the year,
          When in their land the Almighty's service ceased.

            Triumph who will in these profaner rites
          Which we, a generation self-extolled,
          As zealously perform! I cannot share
          His proud complacency:--yet do I exult,
          Casting reserve away, exult to see                         200
          An intellectual mastery exercised
          O'er the blind elements; a purpose given,
          A perseverance fed; almost a soul
          Imparted--to brute matter. I rejoice,
          Measuring the force of those gigantic powers
          That, by the thinking mind, have been compelled
          To serve the will of feeble-bodied Man.
          For with the sense of admiration blends
          The animating hope that time may come
          When, strengthened, yet not dazzled, by the might          210
          Of this dominion over nature gained,
          Men of all lands shall exercise the same
          In due proportion to their country's need;
          Learning, though late, that all true glory rests,
          All praise, all safety, and all happiness,
          Upon the moral law. Egyptian Thebes,
          Tyre, by the margin of the sounding waves,
          Palmyra, central in the desert, fell;
          And the Arts died by which they had been raised.
          --Call Archimedes from his buried tomb                     220
          Upon the grave of vanished Syracuse,
          And feelingly the Sage shall make report
          How insecure, how baseless in itself,
          Is the Philosophy whose sway depends
          On mere material instruments;--how weak
          Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropped
          By virtue.--He, sighing with pensive grief,
          Amid his calm abstractions, would admit
          That not the slender privilege is theirs
          To save themselves from blank forgetfulness!"              230

            When from the Wanderer's lips these words had fallen,
          I said, "And, did in truth those vaunted Arts
          Possess such privilege, how could we escape
          Sadness and keen regret, we who revere,
          And would preserve as things above all price,
          The old domestic morals of the land,
          Her simple manners, and the stable worth
          That dignified and cheered a low estate?
          Oh! where is now the character of peace,
          Sobriety, and order, and chaste love,                      240
          And honest dealing, and untainted speech,
          And pure good-will, and hospitable cheer;
          That made the very thought of country-life
          A thought of refuge, for a mind detained
          Reluctantly amid the bustling crowd?
          Where now the beauty of the sabbath kept
          With conscientious reverence, as a day
          By the almighty Lawgiver pronounced
          Holy and blest? and where the winning grace
          Of all the lighter ornaments attached                      250
          To time and season, as the year rolled round?"

            "Fled!" was the Wanderer's passionate response,
          "Fled utterly! or only to be traced
          In a few fortunate retreats like this;
          Which I behold with trembling, when I think
          What lamentable change, a year--a month--
          May bring; that brook converting as it runs
          Into an instrument of deadly bane
          For those, who, yet untempted to forsake
          The simple occupations of their sires,                     260
          Drink the pure water of its innocent stream
          With lip almost as pure.--Domestic bliss
          (Or call it comfort, by a humbler name,)
          How art thou blighted for the poor Man's heart!
          Lo! in such neighbourhood, from morn to eve,
          The habitations empty! or perchance
          The Mother left alone,--no helping hand
          To rock the cradle of her peevish babe;
          No daughters round her, busy at the wheel,
          Or in dispatch of each day's little growth                 270
          Of household occupation; no nice arts
          Of needle-work; no bustle at the fire,
          Where once the dinner was prepared with pride;
          Nothing to speed the day, or cheer the mind;
          Nothing to praise to teach, or to command!

            The Father, if perchance he still retain
          His old employments, goes to field or wood,
          No longer led or followed by the Sons;
          Idlers perchance they were,--but in 'his' sight;
          Breathing fresh air, and treading the green earth:         280
          'Till their short holiday of childhood ceased,
          Ne'er to return! That birthright now is lost.
          Economists will tell you that the State
          Thrives by the forfeiture--unfeeling thought,
          And false as monstrous! Can the mother thrive
          By the destruction of her innocent sons
          In whom a premature necessity
          Blocks out the forms of nature, preconsumes
          The reason, famishes the heart, shuts up
          The infant Being in itself, and makes                      290
          Its very spring a season of decay!
          The lot is wretched, the condition sad,
          Whether a pining discontent survive,
          And thirst for change; or habit hath subdued
          The soul deprest, dejected--even to love
          Of her close tasks, and long captivity.

            Oh, banish far such wisdom as condemns
          A native Briton to these inward chains,
          Fixed in his soul, so early and so deep;
          Without his own consent, or knowledge, fixed!              300
          He is a slave to whom release comes not,
          And cannot come. The boy, where'er he turns,
          Is still a prisoner; when the wind is up
          Among the clouds, and roars through the ancient woods;
          Or when the sun is shining in the east,
          Quiet and calm. Behold him--in the school
          Of his attainments? no; but with the air
          Fanning his temples under heaven's blue arch.
          His raiment, whitened o'er with cotton-flakes
          Or locks of wool, announces whence he comes.               310
          Creeping his gait and cowering, his lip pale,
          His respiration quick and audible;
          And scarcely could you fancy that a gleam
          Could break from out those languid eyes, or a blush
          Mantle upon his cheek. Is this the form,
          Is that the countenance, and such the port,
          Of no mean Being? One who should be clothed
          With dignity befitting his proud hope;
          Who, in his very childhood, should appear
          Sublime from present purity and joy!                       320
          The limbs increase; but liberty of mind
          Is gone for ever; and this organic frame,
          So joyful in its motions, is become
          Dull, to the joy of her own motions dead;
          And even the touch, so exquisitely poured
          Through the whole body, with a languid will
          Performs its functions; rarely competent
          To impress a vivid feeling on the mind
          Of what there is delightful in the breeze,
          The gentle visitations of the sun,                         330
          Or lapse of liquid element--by hand,
          Or foot, or lip, in summer's warmth--perceived.
          --Can hope look forward to a manhood raised
          On such foundations?"
                                 "Hope is none for him!"
          The pale Recluse indignantly exclaimed,
          "And tens of thousands suffer wrong as deep.
          Yet be it asked, in justice to our age,
          If there were not, before those arts appeared,
          These structures rose, commingling old and young,
          And unripe sex with sex, for mutual taint;                 340
          If there were not, 'then', in our far-famed Isle,
          Multitudes, who from infancy had breathed
          Air unimprisoned, and had lived at large;
          Yet walked beneath the sun, in human shape,
          As abject, as degraded? At this day,
          Who shall enumerate the crazy huts
          And tottering hovels, whence do issue forth
          A ragged Offspring, with their upright hair
          Crowned like the image of fantastic Fear;
          Or wearing, (shall we say?) in that white growth           350
          An ill-adjusted turban, for defence
          Or fierceness, wreathed around their sunburnt brows,
          By savage Nature? Shrivelled are their lips,
          Naked, and coloured like the soil, the feet
          On which they stand; as if thereby they drew
          Some nourishment, as trees do by their roots,
          From earth, the common mother of us all.
          Figure and mien, complexion and attire,
          Are leagued to strike dismay; but outstretched hand
          And whining voice denote them supplicants                  360
          For the least boon that pity can bestow.
          Such on the breast of darksome heaths are found;
          And with their parents occupy the skirts
          Of furze-clad commons; such are born and reared
          At the mine's mouth under impending rocks;
          Or dwell in chambers of some natural cave;
          Or where their ancestors erected huts,
          For the convenience of unlawful gain,
          In forest purlieus; and the like are bred,
          All England through, where nooks and slips of ground       370
          Purloined, in times less jealous than our own,
          From the green margin of the public way,
          A residence afford them, 'mid the bloom
          And gaiety of cultivated fields.
          Such (we will hope the lowest in the scale)
          Do I remember oft-times to have seen
          'Mid Buxton's dreary heights. In earnest watch,
          Till the swift vehicle approach, they stand;
          Then, following closely with the cloud of dust,
          An uncouth feat exhibit, and are gone                      380
          Heels over head, like tumblers on a stage.
          --Up from the ground they snatch the copper coin,
          And, on the freight of merry passengers
          Fixing a steady eye, maintain their speed;
          And spin--and pant--and overhead again,
          Wild pursuivants! until their breath is lost,
          Or bounty tires--and every face, that smiled
          Encouragement, hath ceased to look that way.
          --But, like the vagrants of the gipsy tribe,
          These, bred to little pleasure in themselves,              390
          Are profitless to others.
                                     Turn we then
          To Britons born and bred within the pale
          Of civil polity, and early trained
          To earn, by wholesome labour in the field,
          The bread they eat. A sample should I give
          Of what this stock hath long produced to enrich
          The tender age of life, ye would exclaim,
          'Is this the whistling plough-boy whose shrill notes
          Impart new gladness to the morning air!'
          Forgive me if I venture to suspect                         400
          That many, sweet to hear of in soft verse,
          Are of no finer frame. Stiff are his joints;
          Beneath a cumbrous frock, that to the knees
          Invests the thriving churl, his legs appear,
          Fellows to those that lustily upheld
          The wooden stools for everlasting use,
          Whereon our fathers sate. And mark his brow
          Under whose shaggy canopy are set
          Two eyes--not dim, but of a healthy stare--
          Wide, sluggish, blank, and ignorant, and strange--         410
          Proclaiming boldly that they never drew
          A look or motion of intelligence
          From infant-conning of the Christ-crossrow,
          Or puzzling through a primer, line by line,
          Till perfect mastery crown the pains at last.
          --What kindly warmth from touch of fostering hand,
          What penetrating power of sun or breeze,
          Shall e'er dissolve the crust wherein his soul
          Sleeps, like a caterpillar sheathed in ice?
          This torpor is no pitiable work                            420
          Of modern ingenuity; no town
          Nor crowded city can be taxed with aught
          Of sottish vice or desperate breach of law,
          To which (and who can tell where or how soon?)
          He may be roused. This Boy the fields produce:
          His spade and hoe, mattock and glittering scythe,
          The carter's whip that on his shoulder rests
          In air high-towering with a boorish pomp,
          The sceptre of his sway; his country's name,
          Her equal rights, her churches and her schools--           430
          What have they done for him? And, let me ask,
          For tens of thousands uninformed as he?
          In brief, what liberty of 'mind' is here?"

            This ardent sally pleased the mild good Man,
          To whom the appeal couched in its closing words
          Was pointedly addressed; and to the thoughts
          That, in assent or opposition, rose
          Within his mind, he seemed prepared to give
          Prompt utterance; but the Vicar interposed
          With invitation urgently renewed.                          440
          --We followed, taking as he led, a path
          Along a hedge of hollies dark and tall,
          Whose flexile boughs low bending with a weight
          Of leafy spray, concealed the stems and roots
          That gave them nourishment. When frosty winds
          Howl from the north, what kindly warmth, methought,
          Is here--how grateful this impervious screen!
          --Not shaped by simple wearing of the foot
          On rural business passing to and fro
          Was the commodious walk: a careful hand                    450
          Had marked the line, and strewn its surface o'er
          With pure cerulean gravel, from the heights
          Fetched by a neighbouring brook.--Across the vale
          The stately fence accompanied our steps;
          And thus the pathway, by perennial green
          Guarded and graced, seemed fashioned to unite,
          As by a beautiful yet solemn chain,
          The Pastor's mansion with the house of prayer.

            Like image of solemnity, conjoined
          With feminine allurement soft and fair,                    460
          The mansion's self displayed;--a reverend pile
          With bold projections and recesses deep;
          Shadowy, yet gay and lightsome as it stood
          Fronting the noontide sun. We paused to admire
          The pillared porch, elaborately embossed;
          The low wide windows with their mullions old;
          The cornice, richly fretted, of grey stone;
          And that smooth slope from which the dwelling rose,
          By beds and banks Arcadian of gay flowers
          And flowering shrubs, protected and adorned:               470
          Profusion bright! and every flower assuming
          A more than natural vividness of hue,
          From unaffected contrast with the gloom
          Of sober cypress, and the darker foil
          Of yew, in which survived some traces, here
          Not unbecoming, of grotesque device
          And uncouth fancy. From behind the roof
          Rose the slim ash and massy sycamore,
          Blending their diverse foliage with the green
          Of ivy, flourishing and thick, that clasped                480
          The huge round chimneys, harbour of delight
          For wren and redbreast,--where they sit and sing
          Their slender ditties when the trees are bare.
          Nor must I leave untouched (the picture else
          Were incomplete) a relique of old times
          Happily spared, a little Gothic niche
          Of nicest workmanship; that once had held
          The sculptured image of some patron-saint,
          Or of the blessed Virgin, looking down
          On all who entered those religious doors.                  490

            But lo! where from the rocky garden-mount
          Crowned by its antique summer-house--descends,
          Light as the silver fawn, a radiant Girl;
          For she hath recognised her honoured friend,
          The Wanderer ever welcome! A prompt kiss
          The gladsome Child bestows at his request;
          And, up the flowery lawn as we advance,
          Hangs on the old Man with a happy look,
          And with a pretty restless hand of love.
          --We enter--by the Lady of the place                       500
          Cordially greeted. Graceful was her port:
          A lofty stature undepressed by time,
          Whose visitation had not wholly spared
          The finer lineaments of form and face;
          To that complexion brought which prudence trusts in
          And wisdom loves.--But when a stately ship
          Sails in smooth weather by the placid coast
          On homeward voyage, what--if wind and wave,
          And hardship undergone in various climes,
          Have caused her to abate the virgin pride,                 510
          And that full trim of inexperienced hope
          With which she left her haven--not for this,
          Should the sun strike her, and the impartial breeze
          Play on her streamers, fails she to assume
          Brightness and touching beauty of her own,
          That charm all eyes. So bright, so fair, appeared
          This goodly Matron, shining in the beams
          Of unexpected pleasure.--Soon the board
          Was spread, and we partook a plain repast.

            Here, resting in cool shelter, we beguiled               520
          The mid-day hours with desultory talk;
          From trivial themes to general argument
          Passing, as accident or fancy led,
          Or courtesy prescribed. While question rose
          And answer flowed, the fetters of reserve
          Dropping from every mind, the Solitary
          Resumed the manners of his happier days;
          And in the various conversation bore
          A willing, nay, at times, a forward part;
          Yet with the grace of one who in the world                 530
          Had learned the art of pleasing, and had now
          Occasion given him to display his skill,
          Upon the stedfast 'vantage-ground of truth.
          He gazed, with admiration unsuppressed,
          Upon the landscape of the sun-bright vale,
          Seen, from the shady room in which we sate,
          In softened perspective; and more than once
          Praised the consummate harmony serene
          Of gravity and elegance, diffused
          Around the mansion and its whole domain;                   540
          Not, doubtless, without help of female taste
          And female care.--"A blessed lot is yours!"
          The words escaped his lip, with a tender sigh
          Breathed over them: but suddenly the door
          Flew open, and a pair of lusty Boys
          Appeared, confusion checking their delight.
          --Not brothers they in feature or attire,
          But fond companions, so I guessed, in field,
          And by the river's margin--whence they come,
          Keen anglers with unusual spoil elated.                    550
          One bears a willow-pannier on his back,
          The boy of plainer garb, whose blush survives
          More deeply tinged. Twin might the other be
          To that fair girl who from the garden-mount
          Bounded:--triumphant entry this for him!
          Between his hands he holds a smooth blue stone,
          On whose capacious surface see outspread
          Large store of gleaming crimson-spotted trouts;
          Ranged side by side, and lessening by degrees
          Up to the dwarf that tops the pinnacle.                    560
          Upon the board he lays the sky-blue stone
          With its rich freight; their number he proclaims;
          Tells from what pool the noblest had been dragged;
          And where the very monarch of the brook,
          After long struggle, had escaped at last--
          Stealing alternately at them and us
          (As doth his comrade too) a look of pride:
          And, verily, the silent creatures made
          A splendid sight, together thus exposed;
          Dead--but not sullied or deformed by death,                570
          That seemed to pity what he could not spare.

            But oh, the animation in the mien
          Of those two boys! yea in the very words
          With which the young narrator was inspired,
          When, as our questions led, he told at large
          Of that day's prowess! Him might I compare,
          His looks, tones, gestures, eager eloquence,
          To a bold brook that splits for better speed,
          And at the self-same moment, works its way
          Through many channels, ever and anon                       580
          Parted and re-united: his compeer
          To the still lake, whose stillness is to sight
          As beautiful--as grateful to the mind.
          --But to what object shall the lovely Girl
          Be likened? She whose countenance and air
          Unite the graceful qualities of both,
          Even as she shares the pride and joy of both.

            My grey-haired Friend was moved; his vivid eye
          Glistened with tenderness; his mind, I knew,
          Was full; and had, I doubted not, returned,                590
          Upon this impulse, to the theme--erewhile
          Abruptly broken off. The ruddy boys
          Withdrew, on summons to their well-earned meal;
          And He--to whom all tongues resigned their rights
          With willingness, to whom the general ear
          Listened with readier patience than to strain
          Of music, lute or harp, a long delight
          That ceased not when his voice had ceased--as One
          Who from truth's central point serenely views
          The compass of his argument--began                         600
          Mildly, and with a clear and steady tone.