VI.

A POET'S EPITAPH.

ART thou a Statesman, in the van
Of public business trained and bred?
- First learn to love one living man;
Then may'st thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou? draw not nigh;
Go, carry to some fitter place

The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?
A rosy Man, right plump to see?
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near:
This grave no cushion is for thee.

Or art thou One of gallant pride,

A Soldier, and no man of chaff?

Welcome!

but lay thy sword aside,

And lean upon a Peasant's staff.

Physician art thou? One, all eyes,
Philosopher! a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,

O turn aside,

and take, I pray,

That he below may rest in peace,
That abject thing, thy soul, away!

A Moralist perchance appears; Led, Heaven knows how! to this

And He has neither eyes nor ears;

poor

Himself his world, and his own God;

sod:

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling Nor form, nor feeling, great nor small;

A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,

An intellectual All in All!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;

Sleep in thy intellectual crust;

Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch

Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie

Some random truths he can impart,

But he is weak, both Man and Boy,

Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.

- Come hither in thy hour of strength; Come, weak as is a breaking wave!

Here stretch thy body at full length;

Or build thy house upon this grave.

VII.

TO THE SPADE OF A FRIEND,

(AN AGRICULTURIST.)

COMPOSED WHILE WE WERE LABOURING TOGETHER IN HIS

PLEASURE-GROUND.

SPADE! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his Lands, And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont's side, Thou art a tool of honour in my hands;

I press thee, through the yielding soil, with pride.

Rare Master has it been thy lot to know;
Long hast Thou served a Man to reason true;
Whose life combines the best of high and low,
The toiling many and the resting few ;

Health, meekness, ardour, quietness secure,
And industry of body and of mind;

And elegant enjoyments, that are pure

As Nature is;

too pure to be refined.