The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears.
THE post-boy drove with fierce career,
For threatening clouds the moon had drowned; When, as we hurried on, my ear
Was smitten with a startling sound.
As if the wind blew many ways
I heard the sound, and more and more;
It seemed to follow with the chaise, And still I heard it as before.
At length I to the boy called out; He stopped his horses at the word, But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout, Nor aught else like it, could be heard.
The boy then smacked his whip, and fast The horses scampered through the rain; But, hearing soon upon the blast
The cry, I bade him halt again.
Forthwith alighting on the ground,
"Whence comes," said I, "this piteous moan?" And there a little Girl I found
Sitting behind the chaise, alone.
"My cloak!" no other word she spake, But loud and bitterly she wept,
As if her innocent heart would break;
And down from off her seat she leapt.
"What ails you, child?" - she sobbed, "Look here!" I saw it in the wheel entangled,
A weather-beaten rag as e'er
From any garden scare-crow dangled.
There, twisted between nave and spoke, It hung, nor could at once be freed; But our joint pains unloosed the cloak, A miserable rag indeed!
"And whither are you going, child,
To-night along these lonesome ways?" "To Durham," answered she, half-wild "Then come with me into the chaise."
Insensible to all relief
Sat the poor girl, and forth did send Sob after sob, as if her grief
Could never, never have an end.
"My child, in Durham do you dwell?" She checked herself in her distress, And said, “My name is Alice Fell; I'm fatherless and motherless.
And I to Durham, Sir, belong."
Again, as if the thought would choke Her very heart, her grief grew strong; And all was for her tattered cloak!
The chaise drove on; our journey's end Was nigh; and, sitting by my side,
As if she'd lost her only friend
She wept, nor would be pacified.
Up to the tavern-door we post; Of Alice and her grief I told; And I gave money to the host,
To buy a new cloak for the old.
"And let it be of duffel grey,
As warm a cloak as man can sell! Proud creature was she the next day, The little orphan, Alice Fell!
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 labors of the merchant's desk
By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress His spirit, but the recompense 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 With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets 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, Thus innocent sported, breaking forth As from a cloud of some grave sympathy,
Humor 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 Wherever Christian altars have been raised, 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 ever 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,
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