From the beginning, hollow'd out and scoop'd
For man's affections; else betray'd and lost,
And swallow'd up 'mid deserts infinite!
This is the genuine course, the aim, and end
Of prescient reason; all conclusions else
Are abject, vain, presumptuous, and perverse,
The faith partaking of those holy times.
Life, I repeat, is energy of love
Divine or human; exercised in pain,
In strife, and tribulation; and ordain'd,
If so approved and sanctified, to pass,
Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy."

BOOK VI.

THE CHURCHYARD AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

ARGUMENT.

Poet's address to the state and church of England. The
pastor not inferior to the ancient worthies of the church.
He begins his narratives with an instance of unrequited
love. Anguish of mind subdued, and how. The lonely
miner, an instance of perseverance, which leads by
contrast to an example of abused talents, irresolution,
and weakness. Solitary, applying this covertly to his
own case, asks for an instance of some stranger, whose
dispositions may have led him to end his days here.
Pastor, in answer, gives an account of the harmonizing
influence of solitude upon two men of opposite princi-
ples, who had encountered agitations in public life.
The rule by which peace may be obtained expressed,
and where. Solitary hints at an overpowering fatality.
Answer of the pastor. What subjects he will exclude
from his narratives. Conversation upon this. Instance
of an unamiable character, a female, and why given.
Contrasted with this, a meek sufferer, from unguarded
and betrayed love. Instance of heavier guilt, and its
consequences to the offender. With this instance of a
marriage contract broken is contrasted one of a wi-
dower, evidencing his faithful affection towards his
deceased wife by his care of their female children.
HAIL to the crown by freedom shaped, to gird
An English sovereign's brow! and to the throne
Whereon he sits! Whose deep foundations lie
In veneration and the people's love;
Whose steps are equity, whose seat is law.
Hail to the state of England! And conjoin
With this a salutation as devout,

Made to the spiritual fabric of her church:
Founded in truth; by blood of martyrdom
Cemented; by the hands of wisdom rear'd
In beauty of holiness, with order'd pomp,
Decent, and unreproved. The voice, that greets
The majesty of both, shall pray for both;
That, mutually protected and sustain'd,
They may endure long as the sea surrounds
This favour'd land, or sunshine warms her soil.
And O, ye swelling hills, and spacious plains!
Besprent from shore to shore with steeple-towers,
And spires whose "silent finger points to heaven;"
Nor wanting, at wide intervals, the bulk
Of ancient minster, lifted above the cloud
Of the dense air, which town or city breeds
To intercept the sun's glad beams,-may ne'er
That true succession fail of English hearts,
Who, with ancestral feeling can perceive
What in those holy structures ye possess
Of ornamental interest and the charm

Of pious sentiment diffused afar,
And human charity, and social love.
Thus never shall th' indignities of time
Approach their reverend graces, unopposed;
Nor shall the elements be free to hurt
Their fair proportions; nor the blinder rage
Of bigot zeal madly to overturn;
And, if the desolating hand of war
Spare them, they shall continue to bestow-
Upon the throng'd abodes of busy men
(Depraved, and ever prone to fill their minds
Exclusively with transitory things)
An air and mien of dignified pursuit ;
Of sweet civility-on rustic wilds.
The poet, fostering for his native land
Such hope, entreats that servants may abound
Of those pure altars worthy; ministers
Detach'd from pleasure, to the love of gain
Superior, insusceptible of pride,
And by ambitious longings undisturb'd;
Men, whose delight is where their duty leads
Or fixes them; whose least distinguish'd day
Shines with some portion of that heavenly lustre
Which makes the Sabbath lovely in the sight
of blessed angels, pitying human cares.
And, as on earth it is the doom of truth
To be perpetually attack'd by foes
Open or covert, be that priesthood still,
For her defence, replenish'd with a band
of strenuous champions, in scholastic arts
Thoroughly disciplined; nor (if in course
Of the revolving world's disturbances
Cause should recur, which righteous heaven avert!
To meet such trial) from their spiritual sire
Degenerate; who, constrain❜d to wield the sword
Of disputation, shrunk not, though assail'd
With hostile din, and combating in sight
Of angry umpires, partial and unjust;
And did, thereafter, bathe their hands in fire,
So to declare the conscience satisfied:
Nor for their bodies would accept release;
But, blessing God and praising him, bequeathed
With their last breath, from out the smouldering
flame,

The faith which they by diligence had earn'd,
Or, through illuminating grace, received,
For their dear countrymen, and all mankind.
O high example, constancy divine!

E'en such a man (inheriting the zeal
And from the sanctity of elder times
Not deviating, a priest, the like of whom,
If multiplied, and in their stations set,
Would o'er the bosom of a joyful land
Spread true religion, and her genuine fruits)
Before me stood that day; on holy ground
Fraught with the relics of mortality,
Exalting tender themes, by just degrees
To lofty raised; and to the highest, last;
The head and mighty paramount of truths;
Immortal life, in never-fading worlds,
For mortal creatures, conquer'd and secured.
That basis laid, those principles of faith
Announced, as a preparatory act
Of reverence to the spirit of the place;
The pastor cast his eyes upon the ground,
Not, as before, like one oppress'd with awe,

But with a mild and social cheerfulness,
Then to the solitary turn'd, and spake.

"At morn or eve, in your retired domain,
Perchance you not unfrequently have mark'd
A visiter-in quest of herbs and flowers;
Too delicate employ, as would appear

For one, who, though of drooping mien, had yet
From nature's kindliness received a frame
Robust as ever rural labour bred."

The solitary answer'd: "Such a form
Full well I recollect. We often cross'd
Each other's path; but, as th' intruder seem'd
Fondly to prize the silence which he kept,
And I as willingly did cherish mine,

We met, and pass'd, like shadows. I have heard,
From my good host that he was crazed in brain
By unrequited love; and scaled the rocks,
Dived into caves, and pierced the matted woods
In hope to find some virtuous herb of power
To cure his malady!"

The vicar smiled,
"Alas! before to-morrow's sun goes down
His habitation will be here: for him
That open grave is destined."

"Died he then

Of pain and grief?" the solitary ask'd,
"Believe it not-oh! never could that be !"
"He loved," the vicar answer'd, "deeply loved,
Loved fondly, truly, fervently; and dared
At length to tell his love, but sued in vain ;
Rejected-yea repell'd—and, if with scorn
Upon the haughty maiden's brow, 'tis but

A high-prized plume which female beauty wears
In wantonness of conquest, or puts on
To cheat the world, or from herself to hide
Humiliation, when no longer free.

That he could brook, and glory in ;-but when
The tidings came that she whom he had woo'd
Was wedded to another, and his heart
Was forced to rend away its only hope,
Then, pity could have scarcely found on earth
An object worthier of regard than he,
In the transition of that bitter hour!

Lost was she, lost; nor could the sufferer say
That in the act of preference he had been
Unjustly dealt with; but the maid was gone!
Had vanish'd from his prospects and desires;
Not by translation to the heavenly choir
Who have put off their mortal spoils-ah no!
She lives another's wishes to complete,-
'Joy be their lot, and happiness,' he cried,
His lot and hers as misery is mine!'
"Such was that strong concussion; but the man,
Who trembled, trunk and limbs, like some huge oak
By a fierce tempest shaken, soon resumed
The steadfast quiet natural to a mind
Of composition gentle and sedate,
And in its movements circumspect and slow.
To books, and to the long forsaken desk,
O'er which enchain'd by science he had loved
To bend, he stoutly readdress'd himself,
Resolved to quell his pain, and search for truth
With keener appetite (if that might be)
And closer industry. Of what ensued
Within the heart no outward sign appear'd
Till a betraying sickliness was seen

To tinge his cheek; and through his frame it crept
With slow mutation unconcealable;
Such universal change as autumn makes
In the fair body of a leafy grove

Discolour'd, then divested. "Tis affirm'd
By poets skill'd in nature's secret ways
That love will not submit to be controll'd

By mastery and the good man lack'd not friends
Who strove t'instil this truth into his mind,
A mind in all heart mysteries unversed.
Go to the hills,' said one, remit a while
This baneful diligence: at early morn
Court the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods;
And, leaving it to others to foretell,

By calculations sage, the ebb and flow
Of tides, and when the moon will be eclipsed,
Do you, for your own benefit, construct
A calendar of flowers, pluck'd as they blow
Where health abides, and cheerfulness, and peace.'
The attempt was made; 'tis needless to report
How hopelessly: but innocence is strong,
An an entire simplicity of mind,

A thing most sacred in the eye of heaven,
That opens, for such sufferers, relief
Within their souls, a fount of grace divine;
And doth commend their weakness and disease
To nature's care, assisted in her office
By all the elements that round her wait
To generate, to preserve, and to restore;
And by her beautiful array of forms
Shedding sweet influence from above, or pure
Delight exhaling from the ground they tread."

"Impute it not to impatience, if," exclaim'd
The wanderer, "I infer that he was heal'd
By perseverance in the course prescribed."
"You do not err: the powers, that had been lost
By slow degrees, were gradually regain'd;
The fluttering nerves composed; the beating heart
In rest establish'd; and the jarring thoughts
To harmony restored. But yon dark mould
Will cover him, in the fulness of his strength-
Hastily smitten, by a fever's force;
Yet not with stroke so sudden as refused
Time to look back with tenderness on her
Whom he had loved in passion,-and to send
Some farewell words-with one, but one, request,
That, from his dying hand, she would accept
Of his possessions that which most he prized;
A book, upon whose leaves some chosen plants
By his own hand disposed with nicest care,
In undecaying beauty were preserved;
Mute register, to him, of time and place,
And various fluctuations in the breast;
To her, a monument of faithful love
Conquer'd, and in tranquillity retain'd!

"Close to his destined habitation, lies One who achieved a humbler victory, Though marvellous in its kind. A place there is

High in these mountains, that allured a band
Of keen adventurers to unite their pains
In search of precious ore: who tried, were foil'd-
And all desisted, all, save him alone.
He, taking counsel of his own clear thoughts,
And trusting only to his own weak hands,
Urged unremittingly the stubborn work,
Unseconded, uncountenanced; then, as time

Pass'd on, while still his lonely efforts found
No recompense, derided; and at length,
By many pitied; as insane of mind;
By others dreaded as the luckless thrall
Of subterranean spirits feeding hope
By various mockery of sight and sound;
Hope after hope, encouraged and destroy'd.
But when the lord of seasons had matured
The fruits of earth through space of twice ten years
The mountain's entrails offer'd to his view
And trembling grasp the long deterr'd reward.
Not with more transport did Columbus greet
A world, his rich discovery! but our swain,
A very hero till his point was gain'd,
Proved all unable to support the weight
Of prosperous fortune. On the fields he look'd
With an unsettled liberty of thought,

Of schemes and wishes; in the daylight walk'd
Giddy and restless; ever and anon
Quat'd in his gratitude immoderate cups
And truly might be said to die of joy!
He vanish'd; but conspicuous to this day
The path remains that link'd his cottage door
To the mine's mouth; a long, and slanting track,
Upon the rugged mountain's stony side,
Worn by his daily visits to and from
The darksome centre of a constant hope.
This vestige, neither force of beating rain,
Nor the vicissitudes of frost and thaw
Shall cause to fade, till ages pass away;
And it is named, in memory of the event,
The Path of Perseverance."

"Thou from whom Man has his strength," exclaim'd the wanderer, "O!

Do Thou direct it !-to the virtuous grant
The penetrative eye which can perceive

In this blind world the guiding vein of hope,
That like this labourer, such may dig their way
'Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified ;'
Grant to the wise his firmness of resolve!"

Into the lists of giddy enterprise

Such was be; yet, as if within his frame
Two several souls alternately had lodged,
Two sets of manners could the youth put on ;
And, fraught with antics as the Indian bird
That writhes and chatters in her wiry cage;
Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still
As the mute swan that floats adown the stream,
Or, on the waters of the unruffled lake,
Anchors her placid beauty. Not a leaf,
That flutters on the bough, more light than He;
And not a flower, that droops in the green shade,
More winningly reserved! If ye inquire
How such consummate elegance was bred
Amid these wilds, this answer may suffice,
'Twas nature's will; who sometimes undertakes,
For the reproof of human vanity,

Art to outstrip in her peculiar walk.
Hence, for this favourite, lavishly endow'd

With personal gifts, and bright instinctive wit,
While both, embellishing each other, stood
Yet farther recommended by the charm
Of fine demeanour, and by dance and song,
And skill in letters, every fancy shaped
Fair expectations; nor, when to the world's
Capacious field forth went the adventurer there
Were he and his attainments overlook'd,

Or scantily rewarded; but all hopes,
Cherish'd for him, he suffer'd to depart,

Like blighted buds; or clouds that mimick'd land
Before the sailor's eye; or diamond drops
That sparkling deck'd the morning grass; or augh
That was attractive-and hath ceased to be!
Yet when this prodigal return'd, the rites
Of joyful greeting were on him bestow'd,
Who, by humiliation undeterr'd,

Sought for his weariness a place of rest

Within his father's gates. Whence came he?— clothed

In tatter'd garb, from hovels where abides
Necessity, the stationary host

priest,

"Amid the noblest relics, proudest dust,
That Westminster, for Britain's glory, holds
Within the bosom of her awful pile,
Ambitiously collected. Yet the sigh,

Which wafts that prayer to heaven, is due to all,
Wherever laid, who living fell below
Their virtue's humbler mark; a sigh of pain
If to the opposite extreme they sank.
How would you pity her who yonder rests;
Him, farther off; the pair, who here are laid;
But, above all, that mixture of earth's mould
Whom sight of this green hillock to my mind
Recalls! He lived not till his locks were nipp'd
By seasonable frost of age; nor died
Before his temples, prematurely forced
To mix the manly brown with silver gray,
Gave obvious instance of the sad effect
Produced, when thoughtless folly hath usurp'd
The natural crown that sage experience wears.
Gay, volatile, ingenious, quick to learn,
And prompt to exhibit all that he possess'd
Or could perform! a zealous actor-hired
Into the troop of mirth, a soldier-sworn

Where no one dwells but the wide staring owl And the owl's prey; from these bare haunts, to which

He had descended from the proud saloon,
He came, the ghost of beauty and of health,
The wreck of gayety! but soon revived
In strength, in power refitted, he renew'd
His suit to fortune; and she smiled again
Upon a fickle ingrate. Thrice he rose,
Thrice sank as willingly. For he, whose nerves
Were used to thrill with pleasure, while his voice
Softly accompanied the tuneful harp,

By the nice finger of fair ladies, touch'd
In glittering halls, was able to derive
No less enjoyment from an abject choice.
Who happier for the moment-who more blithe
Than this fall'n spirit? in those dreary holds
His talents lending to exalt the freaks
Of merry-making beggars,-now, provoked
To laughter multiplied in louder peals
By his malicious wit; then, all enchain'd
With mute astonishment, themselves to see
In their own arts outdone, their fame eclipsed,
As by the very presence of the fiend

Who dictates and inspires illusive feats,
For knavish purposes! The city, too,
(With shame I speak it,) to her guilty bowers
Allured him, sunk so low in self-respect
As there to linger, there to eat his bread,
Hired minstrel of voluptuous blandishment;
Charming the air with skill of hand or voice,
Listen who would, be wrought upon who might,
Sincerely wretched hearts, or falsely gay.
Such the too frequent tenor of his boast
In ears that relish'd the report ;-but all
Was from his parents happily conceal'd;
Who saw enough for blame and pitying love.
They also were permitted to receive
His last, repentant breath, and closed his eyes,
No more to open on that irksome world
Where he had long existed in the state
Of a young fowl beneath one mother hatch'd
Though from another sprung-of different kind:
Where he had lived, and could not cease to live
Distracted in propensity; content
With neither element of good or ill;
And yet in both rejoicing; man unblest;
Of contradictions infinite the slave,

Till his deliverance, when mercy made him
One with himself, and one with them who sleep."
""Tis strange," observed the solitary, "strange,
It seems, and scarcely less than pitiful,
That in a land where charity provides
For all that can no longer feed themselves,

A man like this should choose to bring his shame
To the parental door; and with his sighs
Infect the air which he had freely breathed
In happy infancy. He could not pine,
Through lack of converse, no, he must have found
Abundant exercise for thought and speech,
In his dividual being, self-review'd,
Self-catechized, self-punish'd. Some there are
Who, drawing near their final home, and much
And daily longing that the same were reach'd,
Would rather shun than seek the fellowship
Of kindred mould. Such haply here are laid ?"
"Yes," said the priest," the genius of our hills,
Who seems, by these stupendous barriers cast
Round his domain, desirous not alone
To keep his own, but also to exclude
All other progeny, doth sometimes lure,
E'en by this studied depth of privacy,
The unhappy alien hoping to obtain
Concealment, or seduced by wish to find,
In place from outward molestation free,
Helps to internal ease. Of many such
Could I discourse; but as their stay was brief,
So their departure only left behind
Fancies, and loose conjectures. Other trace
Survives, for worthy mention, of a pair
Who, from the pressure of their several fates,
Meeting as strangers, in a petty town
Whose blue roofs ornament a distant reach
Of this far winding vale, remain❜d as friends
True to their choice; and gave their bones in trust
To this loved cemetery, here to lodge
With unescutcheon'd privacy interr'd
Far from the family vault. A chieftain one
By right of birth; within whose spotless breast
The fire of ancient Caledonia burn'd.

He, with the foremost whose impatience hail'd
The Stuart, landing to resume, by force
Of arms, the crown which bigotry had lost,
Aroused his clan; and, fighting at their head,
With his brave sword endeavour'd to prevent
Culloden's fatal overthrow. Escaped

From that disastrous rout, to foreign shores
He fled; and when the lenient hand of time
Those troubles had appeased, he sought and gain'd,
For his obscured condition, an obscure
Retreat, within this nook of English ground.
The other, born in Britain's southern tract,
Had fix'd his milder loyalty, and placed

His gentler sentiments of love and hate,
There, where they placed them who in conscience
prized

The new succession, as a line of kings
Whose oath had virtue to protect the land
Against the dire assaults of papacy

And arbitrary rule. But launch thy bark
On the distemper'd flood of public life,

And cause for most rare triumph will be thine,
If, spite of keenest eye and steadiest hand,

The stream, that bears thee forward, prove not, soon
Or late, a perilous master. He, who oft,
Under the battlements and stately trees
That round his mansion cast a sober gloom,
Had moralized on this, and other truths
Of kindred import, pleased and satisfied,
Was forced to vent his wisdom with a sigh
Heaved from the heart in fortune's bitterness,
When he had crush'd a plentiful estate
By ruinous contest, to obtain a seat
In Britain's senate. Fruitless was the attempt:
And while the uproar of that desperate strife
Continued yet to vibrate on his ear,
The vanquish'd whig, beneath a borrow'd name,
(For the mere sound and echo of his own
Haunted him with sensations of disgust
That he was glad to lose,) slunk from the world
To the deep shade of these untravell'd wilds;
In which the Scottish laird had long possess'd
An undisturb'd abode. Here, then, they met,
Two doughty champions; flaming Jacobite
And sullen Hanoverian! You might think
That losses and vexations, less severe
Than those which they had severally sustain 'd,
Would have inclined each to abate his zeal
For his ungrateful cause; no, I have heard
My reverend father tell that, 'mid the calm
Of that small town encountering thus, they fill'd,
Daily, its bowling-green with harmless strife;
Plagued with uncharitable thoughts the church;
And vex'd the market-place. But in the breasts
Of these opponents gradually was wrought,
With little change of general sentiment,
Such change towards each other, that their days
By choice were spent in constant fellowship;
And if, at times, they fretted with the yoke,
Those very bickerings made them love it more.

"A favourite boundary to their lengthen'd walks This churchyard was. And, whether they had come Treading their path in sympathy and link'd In social converse, or by some short space Discreetly parted to preserve the peace, One spirit seldom fail'd t' extend its sway