O DEARER far than light and life are dear, Full oft our human foresight I deplore; Trembling, through my unworthiness, with fear That friends, by death disjoined, may meet no more!
Misgivings, hard to vanquish or control,
Mix with the day, and cross the hour of rest; While all the future, for thy purer soul, With "sober certainties" of love is blest.
If a faint sigh, not meant for human ear, Tell that these words thy humbleness offend, Cherish me still-else faltering in the rear Of a steep march: uphold me to the end.
Peace settles where the Intellect is meek,
And love is dutiful in thought and deed;
Through Thee communion with that Love I seek; The faith Heaven strengthens where he moulds the creed.
SMALL service is true service while it lasts:
Of humblest Friends, bright Creature! scorn not one ; The Daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dew-drop from the Sun.
EXTEMPORE EFFUSION UPON THE DEATH OF JAMES HOGG.
WHEN first, descending from the moorlands, I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide
Along a bare and open valley,
The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.
When last along its banks I wandered, Through groves that had begun to shed Their golden leaves upon the pathways, My steps the Border-minstrel led.
The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer, Mid mouldering ruins low he lies; And death upon the braes of Yarrow, Has closed the Shepherd-poet's eyes :
Nor has the rolling year twice measured, From sign to sign, its stedfast course, Since every mortal power of Coleridge Was frozen at its marvellous source;
The rapt One, of the godlike forehead, The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth : And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle, Has vanished from his lonely hearth.
Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits, Or waves that own no curbing hand, How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land!
Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber Were earlier raised, remain to hear A timid voice, that asks in whispers, "Who next will drop and disappear?"
Our haughty life is crowned with darkness, Like London with its own black wreath, On which with thee, O Crabbe! forth-looking, I gazed from Hampstead's breezy heath.
As if but yesterday departed,
Thou too art gone before; but why, O'er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered, Should frail survivors heave a sigh?
Mourn rather for that holy Spirit, Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep; For Her1 who, ere her summer faded, Has sunk into a breathless sleep.
No more of old romantic sorrows,
For slaughtered Youth or love-lorn Maid!
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,
And Ettrick mourns with her their Poet dead.
"Not to the earth confined,
Ascend to heaven.'
WHERE will they stop, those breathing Powers, The Spirits of the new-born flowers? They wander with the breeze, they wind Where'er the streams a passage find; Up from their native ground they rise In mute aërial harmonies;
From humble violet, modest thyme, Exhaled, the essential odours climb, As if no space below the sky
Their subtle flight could satisfy:
Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride
If like ambition be their guide.
Roused by this kindliest of May-showers,
The spirit-quickener of the flowers, That with moist virtue softly cleaves The buds, and freshens the young leaves, The birds pour forth their souls in notes Of rapture from a thousand throats- Here checked by too impetuous haste, While there the music runs to waste, With bounty more and more enlarged, Till the whole air is overcharged. Give ear, O Man! to their appeal, And thirst for no inferior zeal,
Thou, who canst think, as well as feel.
Mount from the earth; aspire! aspire! So pleads the town's cathedral quire, In strains that from their solemn height Sink, to attain a loftier flight;
While incense from the altar breathes Rich fragrance in embodied wreaths; Or, flung from swinging censer, shrouds The taper-lights, and curls in clouds Around angelic Forms, the still Creation of the painter's skill, That on the service wait concealed One moment, and the next revealed. -Cast off your bonds, awake, arise, And for no transient ecstasies! What else can mean the visual plea Of still or moving imagery- The iterated summons loud,
Not wasted on the attendant crowd, Nor wholly lost upon the throng Hurrying the busy streets along?
Alas! the sanctities combined By art to unsensualise the mind Decay and languish: or, as creeds
And humours change, are spurned like weeds :
The priests are from their altars thrust;
Temples are levelled with the dust;
And solemn rites and awful forms Founder amid fanatic storms. Yet evermore, through years renewed In undisturbed vicissitude
Of seasons balancing their flight On the swift wings of day and night, Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door Wide open for the scattered Poor.
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