550
"Compatriot, Friend, remote are Garry's hills,
The streams far distant of your native glen;
Yet is their form and image here expressed
With brotherly resemblance.
[347] Turn your steps
Wherever fancy leads; by day, by night,
555
Are various engines working, not the same
As those with
[348] which your soul in youth was moved,
But by the great Artificer endowed
[349]With no inferior power. You dwell alone;
You walk, you live, you speculate alone;
560
Yet doth remembrance, like a sovereign prince,
For you a stately gallery maintain
Of gay or tragic pictures. You have seen,
Have acted, suffered, travelled far, observed
With no incurious eye; and books are yours,
565
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies
Preserved from age to age; more precious far
Than that accumulated store of gold
And orient gems, which, for a day of need,
The Sultan hides deep in
[350] ancestral tombs.
These hoards of truth you can unlock at will:
And music waits upon your skilful touch,
Sounds which the wandering shepherd from these heights
Hears, and forgets his purpose;—furnished thus,
How can you droop, if willing to be upraised?
[351]
575
"A piteous lot it were to flee from Man—
Yet not rejoice in Nature. He, whose hours
Are by domestic pleasures uncaressed
And unenlivened; who exists whole years
Apart from benefits received or done
580
'Mid the transactions of the bustling crowd;
Who neither hears, nor feels a wish to hear,
Of the world's interests—such a one hath need
Of a quick fancy and an active heart,
That, for the day's consumption, books may yield
585
Food not unwholesome; earth and air correct
His morbid humour, with delight supplied
Or solace, varying as the seasons change.
[352]—Truth has her pleasure-grounds, her haunts of ease
And easy contemplation; gay parterres,
590
And labyrinthine walks, her sunny glades
And shady groves in studied contrast—each,
For recreation, leading into each:
[353]These may he range, if willing to partake
Their soft indulgences, and in due time
595
May issue thence, recruited for the tasks
And course of service Truth requires from those
Who tend her altars, wait upon her throne,
And guard her fortresses. Who thinks, and feels,
And recognises ever and anon
600
The breeze of nature stirring in his soul,
Why need such man go desperately astray,
And nurse 'the dreadful appetite of death?'
If tired with systems, each in its degree
Substantial, and all crumbling in their turn,
605
Let him build systems of his own, and smile
At the fond work, demolished with a touch;
If unreligious, let him be at once,
Among ten thousand innocents, enrolled
A pupil in the many-chambered school,
610
Where superstition weaves her airy dreams.
"Life's autumn past, I stand on winter's verge;
And daily lose what I desire to keep:
Yet rather would I instantly decline
To the traditionary sympathies
615
Of a most rustic ignorance, and take
A fearful apprehension from the owl
Or death-watch: and as readily rejoice,
If two auspicious magpies crossed my way;—
To this would rather bend
[354] than see and hear
The repetitions wearisome of sense,
Where soul is dead, and feeling hath no place;
Where knowledge, ill begun in cold remark
On outward things, with formal inference ends;
Or, if the mind turn inward, she recoils
625
At once—or, not recoiling, is perplexed—
Lost in a gloom of uninspired research;
[355]Meanwhile, the heart within the heart, the seat
Where peace and happy consciousness should dwell,
On its own axis restlessly revolving,
630
Seeks, yet can nowhere find, the light of truth.
[356][EQ]
"Upon the breast of new-created earth
Man walked; and when and wheresoe'er he moved,
Alone or mated, solitude was not.
He heard, borne on the wind,
[357] the articulate voice
Of God;
[ER] and Angels to his sight appeared
Crowning the glorious hills of paradise;
Or through the groves gliding like morning mist
Enkindled by the sun. He sate—and talked
With winged Messengers;
[ES] who daily brought
To his small island in the ethereal deep
Tidings of joy and love.—From those pure heights
[358](Whether of actual vision, sensible
To sight and feeling, or that in this sort
Have condescendingly been shadowed forth
645
Communications spiritually maintained,
And intuitions moral and divine)
Fell Human-kind—to banishment condemned
[ET]That flowing years repealed not: and distress
And grief spread wide;
[EU] but Man escaped the doom
Of destitution;—solitude was not.
—Jehovah
[EV]—shapeless Power above all Powers,
Single and one, the omnipresent God,
By vocal utterance, or blaze of light,
Or cloud of darkness, localised in heaven;
[EW]On earth, enshrined within the wandering ark;
[EX]Or, out of Sion, thundering from his throne
Between the Cherubim
[EY]—on the chosen Race
Showered miracles,
[EZ] and ceased not to dispense
Judgments, that filled the land from age to age
660
With hope, and love, and gratitude, and fear;
[FA]And with amazement smote;—thereby to assert
His scorned, or unacknowledged, sovereignty.
And when the One, ineffable of name,
Of
[359] nature indivisible, withdrew
From mortal adoration or regard,
Not then was Deity engulfed; nor Man,
The rational creature, left, to feel the weight
Of his own reason, without sense or thought
Of higher reason and a purer will,
670
To benefit and bless, through mightier power:—
Whether the Persian—zealous to reject
Altar and image, and the inclusive walls
And roofs of temples built by human hands—
[FB]To
[360] loftiest heights ascending, from their tops,
With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow,
[361]Presented sacrifice to moon and stars,
And to the winds and mother elements,
And the whole circle of the heavens, for him
A sensitive existence, and a God,
[FC]With lifted hands invoked, and songs of praise:
Or, less reluctantly to bonds of sense
Yielding his soul, the Babylonian framed
For influence undefined a personal shape;
And, from the plain, with toil immense, upreared
685
Tower eight times planted on the top of tower,
That Belus, nightly to his splendid couch
Descending, there might rest;
[FD] upon that height
Pure and serene, diffused—to overlook
[362]Winding Euphrates, and the city vast
690
Of his devoted worshippers, far-stretched,
With grove and field and garden interspersed;
Their town, and foodful region for support
Against the pressure of beleaguering war.
"Chaldean Shepherds, ranging trackless fields,
695
Beneath the concave of unclouded skies
Spread like a sea, in boundless solitude,
Looked on the polar star, as on a guide
And guardian of their course, that never closed
His stedfast eye. The planetary Five
[FE]With a submissive reverence they beheld;
Watched, from the centre of their sleeping flocks,
Those radiant Mercuries,
[FF] that seemed to move
Carrying through ether, in perpetual round,
Decrees and resolutions of the Gods;
705
And, by their aspects, signifying works
Of dim futurity, to Man revealed.
—The imaginative faculty was lord
Of observations natural; and, thus
Led on, those shepherds made report of stars
710
In set rotation passing to and fro,
Between the orbs of our apparent sphere
And its invisible counterpart, adorned
With answering constellations, under earth,
Removed from all approach of living sight
715
But present to the dead; who, so they deemed,
Like those celestial messengers beheld
All accidents, and judges were of all.
"The lively Grecian, in a land of hills,
Rivers and fertile plains, and sounding shores,—
[FG]Under a cope of sky more variable,
[363]Could find commodious place for every God,
Promptly received, as prodigally brought,
From the surrounding countries, at the choice
Of all adventurers. With unrivalled skill,
725
As nicest observation furnished hints
For studious fancy, his quick hand bestowed
[364]On fluent operations a fixed shape;
Metal or stone, idolatrously served.
And yet—triumphant o'er this pompous show
730
Of art, this palpable array of sense,
On every side encountered; in despite
Of the gross fictions chanted in the streets
By wandering Rhapsodists;
[FH] and in contempt
Of doubt and bold denial
[365] hourly urged
Amid the wrangling schools—a SPIRIT hung,
Beautiful region! o'er thy towns and farms,
Statues and temples, and memorial tombs;
And emanations were perceived; and acts
Of immortality, in Nature's course,
740
Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt
As bonds, on grave philosopher imposed
And armed warrior; and in every grove
A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed,
744
When piety more awful had relaxed.
—'Take, running river, take these locks of mine'—
Thus would the Votary say—'this severed hair,
'My vow fulfilling, do I here present,
'Thankful for my beloved child's return.
749
'Thy banks, Cephisus, he again hath trod,
[FI]'Thy murmurs heard; and drunk the crystal lymph
'With which thou dost refresh the thirsty lip,
'And, all day long, moisten
[366] these flowery fields!'
And, doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was shed
Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose
755
Of Life continuous, Being unimpaired;
That hath been, is, and where it was and is
There shall endure,—existence unexposed
[367]To the blind walk of mortal accident;
From diminution safe and weakening age;
760
While man grows old, and dwindles, and decays;
And countless generations of mankind
Depart; and leave no vestige where they trod.
"We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love;
And, even as these are well and wisely fixed,
765
In dignity of being we ascend.
But what is error?"—"Answer he who can!"
The Sceptic somewhat haughtily exclaimed:
"Love, Hope, and Admiration—are they not
Mad Fancy's favourite vassals? Does not life
770
Use them, full oft, as pioneers to ruin,
Guides to destruction? Is it well to trust
Imagination's light when reason's fails,
The unguarded taper where the guarded faints?
—Stoop from those heights, and soberly declare
775
What error is; and, of our errors, which
Doth most debase the mind; the genuine seats
Of power, where are they? Who shall regulate,
With truth, the scale of intellectual rank?"
"Methinks," persuasively the Sage replied,
780
"That for this arduous office you possess
Some rare advantages. Your early days
A grateful recollection must supply
Of much exalted good by Heaven vouchsafed
To dignify the humblest state.
[368]—Your voice
Hath, in my hearing, often testified
That poor men's children, they, and they alone,
By their condition taught, can understand
The wisdom of the prayer that daily asks
For daily bread. A consciousness is yours
790
How feelingly religion may be learned
In smoky cabins, from a mother's tongue—
Heard while the dwelling vibrates to the din
Of the contiguous torrent, gathering strength
At every moment—and, with strength, increase
795
Of fury; or, while snow is at the door,
Assaulting and defending, and the wind,
A sightless labourer, whistles at his work—
Fearful; but resignation tempers fear,
799
And piety is sweet to infant minds.
—The Shepherd-lad, that
[369] in the sunshine carves,
On the green turf, a dial
[FJ]—to divide
The silent hours; and who to that report
Can portion out his pleasures, and adapt,
Throughout a long and lonely summer's day
805
His round
[370] of pastoral duties, is not left
With less intelligence for moral things
Of gravest import. Early he perceives,
Within himself, a measure and a rule,
Which to the sun of truth he can apply,
810
That shines for him, and shines for all mankind.
Experience daily fixing his regards
On nature's wants, he knows how few they are,
And where they lie, how answered and appeased.
This knowledge ample recompense affords
815
For manifold privations; he refers
His notions to this standard; on this rock
Rests his desires; and hence, in after life,
Soul-strengthening patience, and sublime content.
Imagination—not permitted here
820
To waste her powers, as in the worldling's mind,
On fickle pleasures, and superfluous cares,
And trivial ostentation—is left free
And puissant to range the solemn walks
Of time and nature, girded by a zone
825
That, while it binds, invigorates and supports.
Acknowledge, then, that whether by the side
Of his poor hut, or on the mountain top,
Or in the cultured field, a Man so bred
[371](Take from him what you will upon the score
830
Of ignorance or illusion) lives and breathes
For noble purposes of mind: his heart
Beats to the heroic song of ancient days;
His eye distinguishes, his soul creates,
And those illusions, which excite the scorn
835
Or move the pity of unthinking minds,
Are they not mainly outward ministers
Of inward conscience? with whose service charged
They came and go, appeared and disappear,
[372]Diverting evil purposes, remorse
840
Awakening, chastening an intemperate grief,
Or pride of heart abating: and, whene'er
For less important ends those phantoms move,
Who would forbid them, if their presence serve,
On thinly-peopled mountains and wild heaths,
[373]Filling a space, else vacant, to exalt
The forms of Nature, and enlarge her powers?
"Once more to distant ages of the world
Let us revert, and place before our thoughts
The face which rural solitude might wear
850
To the unenlightened swains of pagan Greece.
[374]—In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched
On the soft grass through half a summer's day,
With music lulled his indolent repose:
And, in some fit of weariness, if he,
855
When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear
A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds
Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched,
Even from the blazing chariot of the sun,
A beardless Youth, who touched a golden lute,
[FK]And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.
The nightly hunter, lifting a bright eye
Up towards the crescent moon,
[375] with grateful heart
Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed
That timely light, to share his joyous sport:
[376]And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs,
[FL]Across the lawn and through the darksome grove,
Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes
By echo multiplied from rock or cave,
Swept in the storm of chase; as moon and stars
870
Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven,
[377]When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked
His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked
The Naiad.[FM] Sunbeams, upon distant hills
Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,
875
Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed
Into fleet Oreads[FM] sporting visibly.
The Zephyrs[FM] fanning, as they passed, their wings,
Lacked not, for love, fair objects whom they wooed
With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque,
880
Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth
In the low vale, or on steep mountain side;
And, sometimes, intermixed with stirring horns
Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard,—
885
These were the lurking Satyrs,
[FM] a wild brood
Of gamesome Deities; or Pan himself,
The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring God!"
The strain was aptly chosen; and I could mark
[378]Its kindly influence, o'er
[379] the yielding brow
Of our Companion, gradually diffused;
While, listening, he had paced the noiseless turf,
Like one whose untired ear a murmuring stream
Detains; but tempted now to interpose,
He with a smile exclaimed:—
"'Tis well you speak
895
At a safe distance from our native land,
And from the mansions where our youth was taught.
The true descendants of those godly men
Who swept from Scotland, in a flame of zeal,
Shrine, altar, image, and the massy piles
900
That harboured them,—the souls retaining yet
The churlish features of that after-race
Who fled to woods, caverns, and jutting rocks,
[380]In deadly scorn of superstitious rites,
Or what their scruples construed to be such—
905
How, think you, would they tolerate this scheme
Of fine propensities, that tends, if urged
Far as it might be urged, to sow afresh
The weeds of Romish phantasy, in vain
Uprooted; would re-consecrate our wells
910
To good Saint Fillan
[FN] and to fair Saint Anne;
And from long banishment recal Saint Giles,
[FO]To watch again with tutelary love
O'er stately Edinborough throned on crags?
A blessed restoration,
[FP] to behold
The patron, on the shoulders of his priests,
Once more parading through her crowded streets
Now simply guarded by the sober powers
Of science, and philosophy, and sense!"
This answer followed.—"You have turned my thoughts
920
Upon our brave Progenitors, who rose
Against idolatry with warlike mind,
And shrunk from vain observances, to lurk
In woods, and dwell under impending rocks
Ill-sheltered, and oft wanting fire and food;
[381]Why?—for this very reason that they felt,
And did acknowledge, wheresoe'er they moved,
A spiritual presence, oft-times misconceived,
But still a high dependence, a divine
Bounty and government, that filled their hearts
930
With joy, and gratitude, and fear, and love;
And from their fervent lips drew hymns of praise,
That through the desert rang.
[382] Though favoured less,
Far less, than these, yet such, in their degree,
Were those bewildered Pagans of old time.
935
Beyond their own poor natures and above
They looked; were humbly thankful for the good
Which the warm sun solicited, and earth
Bestowed; were gladsome,—and their moral sense
They fortified with reverence for the Gods;
940
And they had hopes that overstepped the Grave.
"Now, shall our great Discoverers," he exclaimed,
Raising his voice triumphantly, "obtain
From sense and reason less than these obtained,
Though far misled? Shall men for whom our age
945
Unbaffled powers of vision hath prepared,
To explore the world without and world within,
Be joyless as the blind? Ambitious spirits—
[383]Whom earth, at this late season, hath produced
To regulate the moving spheres, and weigh
950
The planets in the hollow of their hand;
And they who rather dive than soar, whose pains
Have solved the elements, or analysed
The thinking principle—shall they in fact
Prove a degraded Race? and what avails
955
Renown, if their presumption make them such?
Oh! there is laughter at their work in heaven!
Inquire of ancient Wisdom; go, demand
Of mighty Nature, if 'twas ever meant
That we should pry far off yet be unraised;
960
That we should pore, and dwindle as we pore,
Viewing all objects unremittingly
In disconnexion dead and spiritless;
And still dividing, and dividing still,
Break down all grandeur, still unsatisfied
965
With the perverse attempt, while littleness
May yet become more little; waging thus
An impious warfare with the very life
Of our own souls!
"And if indeed there be
An all-pervading Spirit, upon whom
970
Our dark foundations rest, could he design
That this
[384] magnificent effect of power,
The earth we tread, the sky that
[385] we behold
By day, and all the pomp which night reveals;
That these—and that superior mystery
975
Our vital frame, so fearfully devised,
And the dread soul within it—should exist
Only to be examined, pondered, searched,
Probed, vexed, and criticised?
[FR]—Accuse me not
Of arrogance, unknown Wanderer as I am,
980
If, having walked with Nature threescore years,
And offered, far as frailty would allow,
My heart a daily sacrifice to Truth,
I now affirm of Nature and of Truth,
Whom I have served, that their DIVINITY
985
Revolts, offended at the ways of men
Swayed by such motives, to such ends
[386] employed;
Philosophers, who, though the human soul
Be
[387] of a thousand faculties composed,
And twice ten thousand interests, do yet prize
990
This soul, and the transcendent universe,
No more than as a mirror that reflects
To proud Self-love her own intelligence;
That one, poor, finite object, in the abyss
Of infinite Being, twinkling restlessly!
995
"Nor higher place can be assigned to him
And his compeers—the laughing Sage of France.—
[FS]Crowned was he, if my memory do
[388] not err,
With laurel planted upon hoary hairs,
In sign of conquest by his wit achieved
1000
And benefits his wisdom had conferred;
His stooping body tottered with wreaths of flowers
[FT]Opprest, far less becoming ornaments
Than Spring oft twines about a mouldering tree;
[389]Yet so it pleased a fond, a vain, old Man,
1005
And a most frivolous people. Him I mean
Who penned,
[390] to ridicule confiding faith,
This sorry Legend; which by chance we found
Piled in a nook, through malice, as might seem,
Among more innocent rubbish."—Speaking thus,
1010
With a brief notice when, and how, and where,
We had espied the book, he drew it forth;
And courteously, as if the act removed,
At once, all traces from the good Man's heart
Of unbenign aversion or contempt,
1015
Restored it to its owner. "Gentle Friend,"
Herewith he grasped the Solitary's hand,
"You have known lights and guides better than these.
[391]Ah! let not aught amiss within dispose
A noble mind to practise on herself,
1020
And tempt opinion to support the wrongs
Of passion: whatsoe'er be
[392] felt or feared,
From higher judgment-seats make no appeal
To lower: can you question that the soul
Inherits an allegiance, not by choice
1025
To be cast off, upon an oath proposed
By each new upstart notion? In the ports
Of levity no refuge can be found,
No shelter, for a spirit in distress.
He, who by wilful disesteem of life
1030
And proud insensibility to hope,
Affronts the eye of Solitude, shall learn
That her mild nature can be terrible;
That neither she nor Silence lack the power
To avenge their own insulted majesty.
1035
"O blest seclusion! when the mind admits
The law of duty; and can therefore move
[393]Through each vicissitude of loss and gain,
Linked in entire complacence with her choice;
When youth's presumptuousness is mellowed down,
1040
And manhood's vain anxiety dismissed;
When wisdom shows her seasonable fruit,
Upon the boughs of sheltering leisure hung
In sober plenty; when the spirit stoops
To drink with gratitude the crystal stream
1045
Of unreproved enjoyment; and is pleased
To muse, and be saluted by the air
Of meek repentance, wafting wall-flower scents
From out the crumbling ruins of fallen pride
And chambers of transgression, now forlorn.
1050
O, calm contented days, and peaceful nights!
Who, when such good can be obtained, would strive
To reconcile his manhood to a couch
Soft, as may seem, but, under that disguise,
Stuffed with the thorny substance of the past
1055
For fixed annoyance; and full oft beset
With floating dreams, black and disconsolate,
[394]The vapoury phantoms of futurity?