55

When towers and temples fall, to speak of Thee! If sculptured emblems of our mortal doom Recall not there the wisdom of the Tomb, Green ivy risen from out the cheerful earth Will fringe the lettered stone; and herbs spring forth,

Whose fragrance, by soft dews and rain unbound,

Shall penetrate the heart without a wound; While truth and love their purposes fulfil, 60 Commemorating genius, talent, skill,

That could not lie concealed where Thou wert known;

Thy virtues He must judge, and He alone, The God upon whose mercy they are thrown.

Nov., 1830.

XV.

WRITTEN AFTER THE DEATH OF CHARLES LAMB.

To a good Man of most dear memory
This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart
From the great city where he first drew breath,
Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his

bread,

To the strict labours of the merchant's desk 5
By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks
Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress,
His spirit, but the recompence was high;
Firm Independence, Bounty's rightful sire;
Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air;
And when the precious hours of leisure came,
Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse

sweet

ΙΟ

With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets

15

With a keen eye, and overflowing heart:
So genius triumphed over seeming wrong,
And poured out truth in works by thoughtful
love

Inspired-works potent over smiles and tears. And as round mountain-tops the lightning plays,

20

Thus innocently sported, breaking forth
As from a cloud of some grave sympathy,
Humour and wild instinctive wit, and all
The vivid flashes of his spoken words.
From the most gentle creature nursed in fields
Had been derived the name he bore-a name,
Wherever christian altars have been raised, 25
Hallowed to meekness and to innocence;
And if in him meekness at times gave way,
Provoked out of herself by troubles strange,
Many and strange, that hung about his life;
Still, at the centre of his being, lodged
A soul by resignation sanctified:
And if too often, self-reproached, he felt
That innocence belongs not to our kind,
A power that never ceased to abide in him,
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!

*

*

*

*

*

30

35

From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart 39 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 : 45
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.

49

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 (tho' still 55
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, 60 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 help-mate in fast wedlock joined 65 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, 70 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,

75

80

Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee
Was given (say rather thou of later birth
Wert given to her) a Sister-'tis 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, humanising, hallowing powers, Whether withheld, or for her sake unsoughtMore than sufficient recompence !

86

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

90

95

With two collateral stems sprung from one root; Such were they—such thro' life they might have been

99

In union, in partition only such;
Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High;
Yet, thro' 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.

105

ΙΙΟ

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.

115

120

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

125

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.

130

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.