Who, in their noiseless dwelling-place, can hear
The voice of wisdom whispering scripture texts.
For the mind's government, or temper's peace;
And recommending, for their mutual need,
Forgiveness, patience, hope, and charity!"
"Much was I pleased," the grey-hair'd Wanderer said, "When to those shining fields our notice first You turn'd; and yet more pleased have from your lips Gather'd this fair report of them who dwell In that retirement; whither, by such course Of evil hap and good as oft awaits
A tired way-faring man, once I was brought
While traversing alone yon mountain pass.
Dark on my road th' autumnal evening fell,
And night succeeded with unusual gloom,
So hazardous that feet and hands became
Guides better than mine eyes, until a light
High in the gloom appear'd, too high, methought,
For human habitation; but I long'd
To reach it, destitute of other hope.
I look'd with steadiness, as sailors look
On the north star, or watch-tower's distant lamp,
And saw the light,- now fix'd, and shifting now, -
Not like a dancing meteor, but in line
Of never-varying motion, to and fro.
It is no night-fire of the naked hills,
Thought I, some friendly covert must be near.
With this persuasion thitherward my steps
I turn, and reach at last the guiding light;
Joy to myself! but to the heart of her
Who there was standing on the open hill
(The same kind Matron whom your tongue hath praised) Alarm and disappointment! The alarm
Ceased, when she learn'd through what mishap I came,
And by what help had gain'd those distant fields.
Drawn from her cottage, on that aëry height,
Bearing a lantern in her hand she stood,
Or paced the ground, to guide her Husband home,
By that unwearied signal kenn'd afar;
An anxious duty! which the lofty site,
Traversed but by a few irregular paths,
Imposes, whensoe'er untoward chance
Detains him after his accustom'd hour
Till night lies black upon the ground. 'But come,
Come,' said the Matron, 'to our moor abode;
Those dark rocks hide it!' Entering, I beheld
A blazing fire, beside a cleanly hearth
Sate down; and to her office, with leave ask'd
The Dame return'd.
Or e'er that glowing pile
Of mountain turf required the builder's hand
Its wasted splendour to repair, the door
Open'd, and she re-enter'd with glad looks,
Her Helpmate following. Hospitable fare,
Frank conversation, made the evening's treat:
Need a bewilder'd traveller wish for more?
But more was given: I studied, as we sate
By the bright fire, the good Man's form, and face
Not less than beautiful; an open brow
Of undisturb'd humanity; a cheek
Suffused with something of a feminine hue;
Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard;
But, in the quicker turns of the discourse,
Expression slowly varying, that evinced.
A tardy apprehension. From a fount
Lost, thought I, in th' obscurities of time,
But honour'd once, those features and that mien
May have descended, though I see them here.
In such a man, so gentle and subdued,
Withal so graceful in his gentleness,
A race illustrious for heroic deeds,
Humbled, but not degraded, may expire.,
This pleasing fancy (cherish'd and upheld
By sundry recollections of such fall
From high to low, ascent from low to high,
As books record, and even the careless mind
Cannot but notice among men and things)
Went with me to the place of my repose.
Roused by the crowing cock at dawn of day,
I yet had risen too late to interchange
A morning salutation with my Host,
Gone forth already to the far-off seat
Of his day's work. Three dark mid-winter months
Pass,' said the Matron, and I never see,
Save when the sabbath brings its kind release,
My Helpmate's face by light of day. He quits
His door in darkness, nor till dusk returns.
And, through Heaven's blessing, thus we gain the bread
For which we pray; and for the wants provide
Of sickness, accident, and helpless age.
Companions have I many; many friends,
Dependants, comforters,-my wheel, my fire,
All day the house-clock ticking in mine car,
The cackling hen, the tender chicken brood,
And the wild birds that gather round my porch.
This honest sheep-dog's countenance I read;
With him can talk; nor blush to waste a word
On creatures less intelligent and shrewd.
And if the blustering wind that drives the clouds
Care not for me, he lingers round my door,
And makes me pastime when our tempers suit;
But, above all, my thoughts are my support,
My comfort: would that they were oftener fix'd
On what, for guidance in the way that leads
To Heaven, I know, by my Redeemer taught.'
The Matron ended; nor could I forbear
To exclaim, 'O happy, yielding to the law
Of these privations, richer in the main!
While thankless thousands are opprest and clogg'd
By ease and leisure; by the very wealth
And pride of opportunity made poor;
While tens of thousands falter in their path,
And sink, through utter want of cheering light;
For you the hours of labour do not flag;
For you each evening hath its shining star,
And every sabbath-day its golden Sun.""
"Yes!" said the Solitary with a smile
That seem'd to break from an expanding heart,
"Th' untutor❜d bird may found, and so construct,
And with such soft materials line, her nest
Fix'd in the centre of a prickly brake,
That the thorns wound her not; they only guard.
Powers not unjustly liken'd to those gifts
Of happy instinct which the woodland bird
Shares with her species, Nature's grace sometimes
Upon the individual doth confer,
Among her higher creatures born and train'd
To use of reason. And I own that tired
Of th' ostentatious world, a swelling stage
With empty actions and vain passions stuff'd;
And from the private struggles of mankind
Hoping far less then I could wish to hope,
Far less than once I trusted and believed
I love to hear of those who, not contending
Nor summon'd to contend for virtue's prize,
Miss not the humbler good at which they aim,
Blest with a kindly faculty to blunt
The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn
Into their contraries the petty plagues
And hindrances with which they stand beset.
In early youth, among my native hills,
I knew a Scottish peasant who possess'd
A few small crofts of stone-encumber'd ground;
Masses of every shape and size, that lay
Scatter'd about under the mouldering walls
Of a rough precipice; and some, apart,
In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,
As if the Moon had shower'd them down in spite.
But he repined not. Though the plough was scared
By these obstructions, 'round the shady stones
A fertilising moisture,' said the Swain,
'Gathers, and is preserved; and feeding dews
And damps, through all the droughty summer day
From out their substance issuing, maintain
Herbage that never fails: no grass springs up
So green, so fresh, so plentiful, as mine!"
But thinly sown these natures; rare, at least,
The mutual aptitude of seed and soil
That yields such kindly product. He whose bed
Perhaps yon loose sods cover, the poor Pensioner
Brought yesterday from our sequester'd dell
Here to lie down in lasting quiet, he,
If living now, could otherwise report
Of rustic loneliness: that grey-hair'd Orphan-
So call him, for humanity to him
No parent was-feelingly could have told,
In life, in death, what solitude can breed
Of selfishness, and cruelty, and vice;
Or, if it breed not, hath not power to cure.
But your compliance, Sir, with our request
My words too long have hinder'd."
Perhaps incited rather, by these shocks,
In no ungracious opposition, given
To the confiding spirit of his own
Experienced faith, the reverend Pastor said,
Around him looking, "Where shall I begin?
Who shall be first selected from my flock
Gather'd together in their peaceful fold?"
He paused, and, having lifted up his eyes
To the pure heaven, he cast them down again
Upon the earth beneath his feet; and spake:
"To a mysteriously-united pair
This place is consecrate; to Death and Life,
And to the best affections that proceed
From their conjunction; consecrate to faith
In Him who bled for Man upon the cross;
Hallow'd to revelation; and no less
To reason's mandates; and the hopes divine
Of pure imagination;- above all,'
To charity and love, that have provided,
Within these precincts, a capacious bed
And réceptacle, open to the good
And evil, to the just and the unjust;
In which they find an equal resting-place:
Even as the multitude of kindred brooks
And streams, whose murmur fills this hollow vale,
Whether their course be turbulent or smooth,
Their waters clear or sullied, all are lost
Within the bosom of yon crystal Lake,
And end their journey in the same repose!
And blest are they who sleep; and we that know,
While in a spot like this we breathe and walk,
That all beneath us by the wings are cover'd
Of motherly humanity, outspread
And gathering all within their tender shade,
Though loth and slow to come! A battle-field,
In stillness left when slaughter is no more,
With this compared, makes a strange spectacle!
A dismal prospect yields the wild shore strewn
With wrecks, and trod by feet of young and old
Wandering about in miserable search
Of friends or kindred, whom the angry sea
Restores not to their prayer! Ah! who would think
That all the scatter'd subjects which compose
Earth's melancholy vision through the space
Of all her climes these wretched, these depraved, To virtue lost, insensible of peace,
From the delights of charity cut off,
To pity dead, th' oppressor and th' opprest;
Tyrants who utter the destroying word,
And slaves who will consent to be destroy'd-
Were of one species with the shelter'd few,
Who, with a dutiful and tender hand,
Lodged, in a dear appropriated spot,
This file of infants; some that never breathed
The vital air; others, which, though allow'd
That privilege, did yet expire too soon,
Or with too brief a warning, to admit
Administration of the holy rite
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