Drink, Pilgrim, here; Here rest! and if thy heart Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
Thy Spirit, listening to some gentle sound, Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!
A TOMBLESS EPITAPH.
IS true, Idoloclastes Satyrane!
(So call him, for so mingling blame with praise,
And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, Masking his birth-name, wont to character His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,) 'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths, And honoring with religious love the great Of elder times, he hated to excess, With an unquiet and intolerant scorn, The hollow puppets of a hollow age, Ever idolatrous, and changing ever
Its worthless idols! learning, power, and time, (Too much of all) thus wasting with vain war Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true, Whole years of weary days, besieged him close, Even to the gates and inlets of his life! But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm, And with a natural gladness, he maintained The citadel unconquered, and in joy Was strong to follow the delightful Muse. For not a hidden path, that to the shades Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads, Lurked undiscovered by him; not a rill There issues from the fount of Hippocrene, But he had traced it upward to its source,
Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell, Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and culled Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone, Piercing the long-neglected holy cave, The haunt obscure of old Philosophy, He bade with lifted torch its starry walls Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame Of odorous lamps, tended by Saint and Sage. O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts! O studious Poet, eloquent for truth! Philosopher! contemning wealth and death, Yet docile, child-like, full of Life and Love! Here, rather than on monumental stone, This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes, Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.
THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON.
IN the June of 1797, some long-expected Friends paid a visit to the author's cottage; and on the morning of their arrival, he met with an accident, which disabled him from walking during the whole time of their stay. One eve ning, when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the following lines in the garden-bower.
WELL, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance, even when age Had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, mean- while,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top edge, Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock Flings arching like a bridge;-that branchless ash, Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, Fanned by the waterfall! and there my friends Behold the dark green file of long, lank weeds,* That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge Of the blue clay-stone.
Beneath the wide wide Heaven; and view again The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad, My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined And hungered after Nature, many a year, In the great City pent, winning thy way With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds ! Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
Of long, lank weeds ] The asplenium scolopendrium called, in some countries, the Adder's Tongue, in others, the Hart's Tongue; but Withering gives the Adder's Tongue as the trivial name of the ophioglossum only.
And kindle, thou blue ocean! So my Friend Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily; and of such hues As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes Spirits perceive his presence.
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, This little lime-tree bower, have I not marked Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze Hung the transparent foliage! and I watched Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue Through the late twilight; and though now the
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, Yet still the solitary humble bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure ; No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, No waste so vacant, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes "Tis well to be bereft of promised good, That we may lift the Soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook Beat its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I blest it! deeming, its black wing (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had crossed the mighty orb's dilated glory, While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still *Flew creaking o'er thy head, and had a charm For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.
WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING NO MORE POETRY.
DEAR Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe,
That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount Hight Castalie and (sureties of thy faith) That Pity and Simplicity stood by,
And promised for thee, that thou shouldst renounce The world's low cares and lying vanities,
Steadfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse, And washed and sanctified to Poesy.
Yes-thou wert plunged, but with forgetful hand Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son;
*Flew creaking. Some mouths after I had written this line, it gave me pleasure to find that Bartram had observed the same circumstance of the Savanna Crane. "When these birds move their wings in flight, their strokes are slow, moderate, and regular; and even when at a considerable distance, or high above us, we plainly hear the quillfeathers; their shafts and webs upon one another creak as the joints or working of a vessel in a tempestuous sea.”
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