University of Virginia Library

For many a year, old friend, since thou and I
Dream'd our young dreams of twin-born poesy,
And wandering, arm in arm, Cam's banks along,
Held our wild talk, and framed our wayward song,
My stream of verse, as thou full well dost know,
If not dried up, at least hath ceased to flow:
Scarce, I believe, for other cause than this,
That my whole life hath been so full of bliss,
So rich in wedded and domestic love,
That the full heart hath had no will to rove
From the calm daylight of life's real sphere
Into the world of dreams. Year follow'd year,
In one scarce varied, yet unwearying round
Of undisturb'd enjoyment; still I found
The present more unclouded than the past,
And almost deem'd joy's increase thus would last,
Endless and still progressive. Why should I
Quit this fair world, and all its imagery,
For the unreal and unblest domain
Of shadowy fancy? why invoke again
My passionate Muse? why crowd this world-worn brain
With unaccustom'd visions, far less bright
Than the loved objects of my waking sight;
Exchanging sober certainty of peace
For wild unrest? 'Twas well my song should cease,
My harp lie mute; but now that Death hath come
Across my threshold, and despoil'd my home
Of its long virgin bliss, I rove once more
Through the dim fields of thought, well known of yore,
But long forsaken; summon from my brain
The ghosts of dreams which there had buried lain
Through my past years of happiness; extend
My plumeless wings, and struggle to ascend
(With efforts weak indeed, and little worth)
From the dim sphere of this perturbed earth
To Fancy's wizard realm. Thou'lt hardly guess
How swiftly, since yon day of bitterness,
My stream of what was once poetic thought
Hath flow'd and murmur'd; how this pen hath wrought
At the old toil, for years well nigh forgot,
While verse, almost without a blur or blot,
Starts from its touch unbidden. So I range
From bank to bank, culling a garland strange
Of many-colour'd flowers,—explore the mine,
Boundless and deep, of Hebrew lore divine,—
And fashion some sweet tale, by Moses writ,
Into such simple rhyme as may befit
The studies of my nursery; or again
Revert, in thought, to our still recent pain,
And ere its memory fade (if fade it may),
Or all its bitterness hath past away,
Note down minutely every pang we felt
While Death, (grim inmate,) in our household dwelt;
Our griefs and consolations, one and all,
Before and since our darling's funeral:
Thus treasuring up such thoughts, for after years,
As then may fill our eyes with pleasant tears.
In these, and tasks like these, do I beguile
My leisure hours, and wander many a mile
With book and pencil; Gerard at my side,
Meanwhile his gallant donkey doth bestride,
With questions grave and deep, from time to time,
Scattering my thoughts, and spoiling many a rhyme;
Which, were his chat less clever or less quaint,
Might well provoke ten poets or a saint.
Thus by degrees have I laid up a store
Of verse—some eighteen hundred lines or more,
In two brief months, yet not encroached at all
On pastoral labours or didactical;
By strict economy of brains and time
Alternating my sermons with my rhyme,
And not retrenching half an hour per week
Of lecture to my flock, a page of Greek
Or Latin to my pupils. So I spend
My time (I trust not idly), and now send
A sample (not, perchance, first-rate), to thee
Of my new manufacture, which will be
A voice as from the sepulchre, to tell
Of days long past, but still remember'd well,
And ne'er to be forgotten; days of youth,
And hope, and gladness, and unsullied truth,
And rich imagination, which no more
Shall visit us in this world, or restore
What Time hath taken from us. Yet, my friend,
I trust Time borrows less than he doth lend
To souls like thine and mine; nor would I now,
While recent grief still half o'erclouds my brow—
While that, of which my home hath been bereft,
Still throws a shade of gloom o'er all that's left—
Give, if I could, my four and thirty years,
With all their cares and sorrows, hopes and fears,
For reckless twenty-one:—I'd not exchange
For all the ideal beauty, bright and strange,
Which fancy painted in the days gone by,
My Margaret's thin pale cheek and sunken eye;
(For grief, alas! on her hath done its work,
And in the depths of that deep heart doth lurk
A still consuming trouble;) I'd not give
The bliss which in my children's smiles doth live—
Their prattle, or their sports, for all the joy,
(Nay, ten times all) which, when I was a boy,
Or wayward stripling, danced before my sight
In waking dreams fantastically bright;
Though I believe, e'en then, my fondest thought
But rarely long'd for, or imagined aught
Of bliss more perfect than hath been my share;
Which, if 'tis mingled now with grief and care,
Why should I marvel, or repine that I
Must bear the burdens of mortality,—
The ills that flesh is heir to? I believe
That God, in mercy, causes me to grieve;
And, should the current of my future years
Be ruffled with deep sighs, and swoln with tears,
Let me reflect how cloudless and serene
The spring and summer of my life have been:
Yea, and thank God for sending griefs like these,
Lest I, like Moab, settle on my lees;
And, having preach'd to others, prove one day
Myself a miserable castaway.

But shall I waste the waters whose wild rush
From my heart's rock hath now been made to gush
By the sharp stroke of Heaven's afflictive rod?
Not so: henceforth let me devote to God
Whatever, with that current, may be roll'd;
Whether some few pure grains of genuine gold,
Such as enrich'd Pactolus' stream of yore,
Or haply baser and less brilliant ore;
Even such as stains your Cornish streams like blood,
Dimming their brightness with metallic mud,
And spoiling of its glories many a scene
Which, but for them, right beautiful had been;
So that we strangers, with offended eye,
Loathe the foul brooks, and wish their channel dry.
Such, haply, mine may be; for 'twill be fed
From depths whose better ore hath perished,
Work'd up long since by youthful passion's rage,
And manhood's cares, till now, in middle age,
A fragment only of what was remains,
Scanty and base, and scarcely worth the pains
By which it must be wrought; yet, such as 'tis,
Henceforth let it be His and only His,
Who form'd and who can use it, if He will,
Designs by us undreamt of to fulfil,
Poor though it be. Nor boots it to regret
The loss of my past years to verse, if yet
My heart has springs of feeling which may be
Wrought into strains of loftier poesy
Than I have yet attempted; though, I own,
I feel as if my spirit had outgrown
Its aptitude for song; as if too late,
It sought its wither'd powers to renovate,
Shooting forth blossoms on late summer's bough,
Which should have bloom'd in spring, and yielded now
To autumn's mellow fruitage. Good, my friend,
Thy sympathy and counsel quickly lend;
And if thou canst (as well thou couldst of old)
Assist my struggling spirit to unfold
Its latent powers; if thou canst guide aright
Its aimless yet and undecided flight,
Give me such aid. I challenge thee once more
To a renewal of our feats of yore.
Let me provoke thee to contention high
Of emulative prowess; let us try
Whether the paths of life, which now we tread,
Yield not wherewith our spirits may be fed
For enterprise poetic, and supply
Themes not unmeet for loftiest poesy.
Methinks our range for fruitful thought is wide—
The church, the cot, the dying saint's bedside,
The house of mourning, the glad nuptial morn,
The christening, and the death of the first-born;
Yea, even the pastoral glance, which peeps within
The foul abodes of infamy and sin;
The hopes and fears of ministerial fight
With souls deep plunged in spiritual night;
The triumph rarely, but how richly, won,
When guilt and desperation's headstrong son,
Whose soul for man or demon ne'er hath quail'd,
By strength of cogent argument assail'd,
Begins to stoop his helm, retreats and reels
Before the Spirit's sword, which now he feels
With terror and with pain, unfelt before,
Cutting its way into his heart's rough core,
And cleaving, with its keen ethereal point,
Spirit and soul, the marrow and the joint,
Till he is fain the unequal fight to yield,
And leave the gospel master of the field.
Yea, childlike and submissive, bows his head
To Heaven's high will, and follows as he's led,
Till his friends find him where disciples meet,
Devoutly sitting at his Saviour's feet—
Him whom no force could tame, no fetters bind,
Meek and well clothed, and in his perfect mind.
Triumphs like these to win and to rehearse
Is ours alone. Are such less fit for verse
Than battle-fields and bloodshed, wounds and scars,
And tears and groans, the pride of mortal wars?
Or would we look on Nature's face awhile
With eyes which would indulge a sober smile?
The world hath aspects, in our pastoral sphere,
Meet for such mirth: 'tis ours to see and hear
The parish feud—the vestry's grave debate;
And, in our daily walks, to contemplate
In poor and rich, in rustic and refined,
The freaks and whims of man's mysterious mind
In all its varying humours. But 'tis time
To check the rovings of this wayward rhyme;
And I have much to ask of thine and thee,
And somewhat too to tell, which may not be
Comprised in such brief space as now remains
In this full sheet. Howbeit, if these poor strains
Find favour in thy sight, (as I suppose
They partly will,) write soon in verse or prose,
As likes thee best, give me such sympathy
And counsel as thou canst; but let them be
Accompanied by news, delay'd too long,
Of all thy household; how, amidst the throng
Of boarding-house anxieties and cares,
The gentle spirit of our Mary fares;
How thrives my bright-eyed namesake, thy fair son;
What feats of letter'd prowess he hath done;
Nor cheat me of the promise, long since given,
To tell of Him, whose spirit, now in Heaven,
Sees, face to face, the God whom long he sought
By patient study and profoundest thought,
What I so thirst to hear.

Meanwhile our days
Yield matter plentiful for thanks and praise
To the great Giver of all Good; though now
Sorrow and care have drawn o'er either brow
A deeper shade than veil'd it heretofore,
Ere death had found an entrance through our door.
Our course of life thou knew'st of old, but O!
Thou know'st not, and 'tis time that thou shouldst know
(Thou and thy Mary) what a spring of bliss,
Almost too pure for such a world as this,
Hath gush'd out unawares within this year,
Our joys to brighten, and our griefs to cheer,
With sympathy and love intense and deep:—
A treasure beyond price, and which to keep
All to ourselves, unshared by thee and thine,
Seems monstrous. If high faith and love divine,
Glowing in hearts by nature's self design'd
For all things lovely, noble, pure and kind,
And graced by all that may command respect
Of female wisdom and fine intellect—
If this afford thee one attraction more
Than those in which we were so rich before,
Let not the summer months again have fled,
And left our parsonage unvisited.
Come, Derwent, and come, Mary; come and see
How bloom our roses on their parent tree:
Come, take sweet counsel with our friends, who here
Supply your place, and scarcely seem less dear.
Come, and let Derwikin, the bright and wise,
Gladden our Gerard's and George William's eyes;
That he and they, when we shall be no more,
May to each other bear the love we bore;
Transmitting to their sons, in after days,
The memory of our friendship and our lays.