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VI.

A POET'S EPITAΡΗ.

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 poor sod:
And He has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God;

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,

The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

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.

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