University of Virginia Library

When first I knew him, Raban was already
Verging on age, yet full of lusty life;
With all his senses perfect to enjoy
The fatness and the sweetness of the earth,
And all its beauty; and with all his mind
Perfect to do its work—to reason well,
To play with graceful fancy, or mirthful jest
That rushed from him, like spark from glowing steel,
I' the clash of argument: and he could soar
Still into realms of thought that touch the stars,
And lie about the Eternal; and his heart
Was very young, and nothing loved so much
As the fresh hopes of noble-purposed youth
Not yet desponding of a glorious world.
Trim and erect, with locks of iron-grey,
A large eye full of light, and features thin
That grew with age in beauty; a manner brisk
And breezy; ready of speech for sharp retort,
Or flowing period; given to dainty humour,
Where delicate touches of quaint character
Flitted like smiles upon his words; he knew
Affairs and books and men, and it was like
Great music just to sit beside the fire,
And hearken his discourse.

One of a race,
Often much slighted, often serving much,
Who miss their aim in the first spring, and fall,
A season, out of sight among the waste
Of prodigal life; yet better so kept back
In the young bud, than in the bloom of promise
To be frost-bitten, for he found a way,
And filled a larger space by having failed
Than first success had given him. He had once
Sought the Priest's office, well content to be
The humble pastor of a humble flock
Of shepherds 'mong green hills, or of dull hinds
Whose thoughts are of the mixen or the calves
Hard to lift Heavenward. But he was not made
For the Priest's work, whose Sundays domineer
The week with preaching, as he goes about
Slow sermon-grinding till his thought is thin
As the shrill fife, the while he makes his rounds,
And hears the parish-gossip, and grows small
With its small interests, only, now and then,
Lit up by broader lights that shoot athwart
From that dread door which opens for all men.

Orthodox? Well; I think he had not any
Cut-and-dry scheme—equation nicely framed
With plus and minus quantities and powers,
Subtracting or dividing human sins
And sorrows of the Highest, till the end
Brought out salvation neatly. Some-how he
Could never work the problem out so clear,
Having an Infinite quantity to deal with,
That would not balance with a sum of littles,
However multiplied. Therefore he had
No handy formulas for faith, and shunned
Familiar phrase of preaching, which he called
Old pulpit-dust beat from the cushion when
Thought is most lacking; also he would try
Perilous flights, at times, into far realms
Of fine imagination, where his flock
Followed him only with their eyes, as one
Watches a cloud soar up, and fade away
Into the setting sun.

And yet his faith
Was true to the old Creeds he left behind,
As the fresh art of a new age still holds
All past achievement in its scheme of progress,
And moves on the old lines. He kept their spirit;
Only the framework, and the rigid joinings
Clamped, as with iron, by much-hammered texts,
He loosened; for he deemed the truth was there,
But yet in forms too rounded to be true,
And clothed as with an armour which grew not
Though the man grew within, till what was meant
For a defence brought weakness. Thus, at times,
He seemed to assail their most secure beliefs,
And sap the main foundation of their hopes,
When he was merely setting free the soul
Of Truth, on which they lived, and which he loved;
Only they knew it not without the husk,
Nor could they live on it without the straw,
Which they were used to, while he would refine,
And from all gross admixture purify,
Till he could sip it like an odorous dew.

So have I heard him tell that, by and by,
No flock would eat his pasture; where he came
They wandered off to sit beside the fire,
Or saunter in the fields considering
The lilies how they grew, or to rehearse
Questions once learnt beside a mother's knee,
And pray for the old gospel of their youth.
“And they were right,” he said; “man cannot live
Without his formulas—I was a fool!
Your disembodied, unfamiliar thought,
Like disembodied spirit, frightens him;
Or he seems left, as naked in the cold
And dark, amid the crash of breaking ice,
And polar fogs wherein he sees no light,
But the ice-glimmer everywhere. And yet
'Tis well for you to-day that I was left
To play the fool; I think ye have more light
That I lie in the shade; your life is larger
That mine was straitened—freer through my bonds.”

I found among his papers sundry traces
Of that old time, when he was preaching faith
Just as he learned it, day by day, and oft
Erasing one day what he writ the last
Upon their puzzled minds; a hint or two
Of hope and failure, and some things he called
“Crystallised sermon,” tied up with a string.

So he forsook the priesthood, trying first
Scholastic tasks, and in his leisure hours
Penning brief essays, quaintly humorous,
Or thoughtful with the flavour of a soul
Fresh from the vision of a dewy world
That still seemed very good: and people noted
The promise in them of an unknown power.
Ere long the breakfast table mirthful grew
With an incisive and sarcastic wit
That played about our cloudy politics
With ridicule like reason; now and then
Unfolding, too, new depths of social right,
And hopes for men that staggered the dull brain
Of rural squires believing in their game,
And rural priests believing in their teinds,
And burghers cushioned in old customs, good
For people well-to-do, but quickened life
And expectation in the poor oppressed.
Soon this man grew, by writing and by speech,
A power among us; unto some he seemed
A Firebrand fain to set the world ablaze,
Class against class, and all against the Faith
Which anchored men to God by prophet-forms,
Where prophet-vision was not: but to some
He brought the hope of better days a-coming,
And brighter future for their dismal life.

But when I knew him, he had dropt his pen,
And done his work, and took his well-earned leisure
Cheerfully, as a man who had not lived
In vain; but could look back upon a path
Troubled with battle and turmoil, hope and fear,
And frequent disappointment and defeat,
Yet brightened, too, by trophies of success—
By growth of right, of freedom, and of knowledge,
And power to grow still more, wherein he had
No little part. Now, round his restful years
Honour and love were gathered; gratitude
Grew out of service lightly once esteemed,
But in its full achievement plainly seen
To fruit with good for all. A happy lot
Wisely to serve your day, and in the glow
Of evening feel its calm steal over you,
And see the people glad, and hear them speak
Of the ill times you helped to better for them.

I met him, first, when hunting for a book
Among the stalls, where he was hunting too,
Now his life's chiefest business, and its joy:
And I, being fearful that he sought the same
Rare volume, looked askance at him, and weighed
My scanty purse with his, doubtful; till he
Who knew book-hunting minds, and slender means,
Saluted me, and we grew friends ere long,
Having a common love of curious lore.
Thus meeting, by and by, I found my way
Into his home, which once had been made bright
By a fair helpmate, and by joyous girls
Lightsome as flowers: but it was lonely now,
And silent, for they all had gone before
Into the silent land. I found his rooms
All lined with books, and littered too with books
On chair and table and floor; pale-vellumed classics—
Sound English calf, respectable—grey-paper
German, soon dog-eared—French like buttercups—
Aldine editions costly, beautiful—
And many tiny Elzevirs—and Scotch
Imprints at Capmahoun—tall copies scarce—
Fair tomes emitted by the press beloved
Of him who, praising Folly, smote the monk,
And grinned out of his hood: books everywhere,—
Folio and quarto, duodecimo,—
Luxurious editions—titles quaint
With curious woodcuts—travels, stories, poems;
All precious rubbish that a Book-worm loves;
And there I revelled—who so happy as I?
What joyous hours we had there as he showed
How this was precious for a curious blunder,
That for an autograph, one for a comma
Oddly misplaced, another for its margin,
Its type, its title, or its colophon!
Skilled in this lore, he yet laughed at his skill,
And passed a thousand jests upon a taste
So foolish, while he fondled some loved prize,
Quarto or folio, like a babe beloved,
And told the story of its search and capture,
And how he brought it home like one who walked
Among the stars, and sang for very joy.

We grew fast friends, for all his friends were young,
And that which linked him with the Past, his love
Of ancient lore, was less than that which drew
His heart to the opening Future; full of hope
He hung about the dawn, like morning star,
And watched the coming day; not fearing greatly,
Although he saw the germs of larger change,
And deeper movements in the thoughts of man
Wrestling for birth, than centuries had known.
But falling sick, at length, he slowly sank
Beneath a wasting ill that broke his strength,
Yet not his spirit, for he still was gay,
And grimly jested at his racking cough,
Made merry with his bones that fleshless grew,
Cheating the worms, he said; and under all
Lay a great calm of Faith and surest Hope.
One evening, sitting lonely by the fire
A letter came to me, black-bordered, sealed
With skull and cross-bones, yet his writing plain,
I opened it in fear, and there I read

THE LETTER

I read, and, hastening to his house, I found
'Twas even as he said. In his last hours
He wrote, and gave strict orders not to send
The letter till his final breath was drawn,
And now he lay there mystic, beautiful.

Never, in all those years, had I once dreamed
That he, in secret, plied the Poet's art.
He flaunted in the face the hardest facts,
Brought reasons by the score, had strokes of wit
When reasons failed, and bubbled o'er with fun;
But never passing word, or tremulous tone,
Hinted of Love's sweet sorrow, or of song,
Long brooding o'er the tragic bliss o' the heart;
Till now I found these lyrics scattered, most,
Loose in a drawer, and cast them into shape
As I could trace the thread: and gathered up
The broken fragments with the care of love,
That nothing should be lost of a true life.
For he that truly lives, and clearly sees
The truth wrapt in his life, and can set forth,
Amid the trivial and the commonplace,
The soul of truth for which he dared to live,
Leaves to the world a nobler legacy
Than wealth of hoarded gold, in that he kindles
Lights on the dim, uncertain way we go.