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Charity, 'mid the multitude of sins

That she can cover, left not his exposed
To an unforgiving judgment from just Heaven.
O, he was good, if e'er a good Man lived!

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
Had from a faltering pen been asked in vain:
Yet, haply, on the printed page received,
The imperfect record, there, may stand unblamed
As long as verse of mine shall breathe the air
Of memory, or see the light of love.

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,
Passing the love of women"; and between
Man and his helpmate in fast wedlock joined
Through God, is raised a spirit and soul of love
Without whose blissful influence Paradise
Had been no Paradise; and earth were now
A waste where creatures bearing human form,
Direst of savage beasts, would roam in fear,
Joyless and comfortless. Our days glide on;
And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve
That he hath been an Elm without his Vine,
And her bright dower of clustering charities,
That, round his trunk and branches, might have
clung,

Enriching and adorning. Unto thee,

Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee
Was given (say rather thou of later birth
Wert given to her) a Sister, - 't is a word
Timidly uttered, for she lives, the meek,
The self-restraining, and the ever kind;
In whom thy reason and intelligent heart
Found for all interests, hopes, and tender cares,
All softening, humanizing, hallowing powers,
Whether withheld, or for her sake unsought-
More than sufficient recompense!

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
Of a protector, the first filial tie

Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight,
Remained imperishably interwoven

With life itself. Thus, 'mid a shifting world,
Did they together testify of time

And season's difference, a double tree

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With two collateral stems sprung from one root; Such were they, such through life they might

have been

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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
Acknowledges God's grace, his mercy feels,
And in its depth of gratitude is still.

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,
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 steadfast 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,

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