Charity, 'mid the multitude of sins That she can cover, left not his exposed From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart Those simple lines flowed, with an earnest wish, Though but a doubting hope, that they might serve Fitly to guard the precious dust of him. Whose virtues called them forth. That aim is missed; For much that truth most urgently required Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend, But more in show than truth; and from the fields, And from the mountains, to thy rural grave Transported, my soothed spirit hovers o'er Its green, untrodden turf, and blowing flowers; And, taking up a voice, shall speak (though still Awed by the theme's peculiar sanctity Which words less free presumed not even to touch) Of that fraternal love, whose heaven-lit lamp From infancy, through manhood, to the last Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour, Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, enshrined Within thy bosom. "Wonderful" hath been The love established between man and man, Enriching and adorning. Unto thee, Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee Her love (What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here?) Was as the love of mothers; and when years, Lifting the boy to man's estate, had called The long protected to assume the part Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight, With life itself. Thus, 'mid a shifting world, And season's difference, a double tree With two collateral stems sprung from one root; Such were they, such through life they might have been - In union, in partition only such; Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High; Yet, through all visitations and all trials, Still they were faithful; like two vessels launched From the same beach, one ocean to explore, With mutual help, and sailing to their league True, as inexorable winds, or bars Floating or fixed of polar ice, allow. But turn we rather, let my spirit turn With thine, O silent and invisible Friend! To those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief, When, reunited, and by choice withdrawn From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught That the remembrance of foregone distress, And the worse fear of future ill, (which oft Doth hang around it, as a sickly child Upon its mother,) may be both alike Disarmed of power to unsettle present good, So prized, and things inward and outward held In such an even balance, that the heart O gift divine of quiet sequestration! The hermit, exercised in prayer and praise, And feeding daily on the hope of heaven, Is happy in his vow, and fondly cleaves To life-long singleness; but happier far Was to your souls, and, to the thoughts of others, A thousand times more beautiful appeared, Your dual loneliness. The sacred tie Is broken; yet why grieve? for Time but holds. His moiety in trust, till Joy shall lead To the blest world where parting is unknown. 1835. XVI. 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, Their golden leaves upon the pathways, The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer, Nor has the rolling year twice measured, The rapt one, of the godlike forehead, Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits, Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber Our haughty life is crowned with darkness, Like London with its own black wreath, |