Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Farewell, kind Spirit! Like a summer cloud
With no ungentle gloom hath death come down
All calmly on the sunshine of old age:
And now thou sleepest. From the far-off land
Of hills and rivers thou didst love in youth,
Perchance upon thy dying ear there fell
Voices and mystic sounds with cadence strange,
That spoke in thrilling echoes of the time

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Of youth's high breathings, manhood's energies.
Or thoughts, long since forgotten, then came in,
Came through the obscure posterns of the soul,
And thy strong frame was stirred; and in thine eyes
There went and came a childlike simpleness;
While ever and anon a heavenly light
(Such would I deem the birthplace of those looks
That pass upon the features of the sick)
Flashed forth in broken gleams, chasing away
The films of death; even like the voiceless breeze
That comes with twilight shadows from the hills,
Dimpling the lucid breast of some deep lake.

Thy lot was hard, benevolent Old Man!
Most hard indeed! Thou wouldst have pitched thy tent,
(A simple tent as for an out-door man,
A man of the fresh air and merry skies)
Where some lone streamlet wells from out its urn
Of moss-clad rock, there gladly listening
The quiet music of the mountain winds;
And tuning thy full soul to such high themes
As most befit an ardent worshipper
At nature's inmost shrine; and feeding thence
Thy natural cheerfulness with those fair forms
That move in peaceful gladness on the earth,
Or float like golden vapors through the air,
Mutely, yet not without significance.

Thy lot was hard, benevolent Old Man!
Thou of the quiet eye and frolic tongue!
Most hard indeed! Within the city pent,
That huge and troublous city, thou didst walk
A cheerless exile from thine own bright land.
There thy soul sickened at man's selfishness:
Thy heart recoiled upon itself; for men

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Knew not the language that it spake: they spurned
Those striving hopes and phantasies and loves,
Which were thy real world; for thou hadst been
A priest in nature's temple, while the crowd
Were hurrying on to those dull clamorous halls,
Where cold suspicion hath usurped the throne,
The ancient throne of wisdom, and hath taught
Her baneful lessons of distrust and pride,
And severed all our old ancestral bonds,
Whereby deep social love was symbolized,
And in the bosom of our social state
Somewhat of moral grandeur was detained.

All this was heavy on thee, mild Old Man!
A mournful gloom was round thy spirit hung,
Of which the dusky veil of that great town
Were no inapt resemblance: yet not so
Wert thou a man to shun the company
Of thy less gifted brethren; though thy soul
Yearned for the open fields and liberal air
To wander, fancy's freeman. As the sun,
That struggles all day long with autumn fogs,
Shrouds in a misty mantle his bright form,
Then darts his evening splendors far and wide
O'er hill and dale; so from thy spirit's gloom
A native gaiety of heart broke forth
With a most happy lustre, which dispelled
The clouds of sadness gathered on thy brow.

But no man hath a lot of unmixed ill;
And thou hadst surely much of tranquil mirth,
And many quaint enjoyments, shared by none,
And instincts of a wisely wayward kind,
And ill-assorted sympathies, from whose
Strange medley thou couldst moral order bring.
Thine was a quiet heart; clear thoughtfulness

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Was visible upon that open brow.
For kindly nature never did forget
Her worshipper, but sent unto his soul,
Ay, even in the jostling of the streets,
Impulses, such as on the mountain tops
In early youth he had received, or felt
In wandering amid forest sanctities,
When not a leaf in the green depths was stirred.
Thus, as he walked along the crowded streets,
He was not of the crowd,—as many more
Perchance were not, by hopeless love assailed,
Or by fresh sorrow severed from the herd,
Or holy errand. For all-powerful love,
Grandeur, and her twin-sister beauty, there
Were with him. From her ancient classic haunts
Ideal grace was summoned to attend.
And, whereso'er he moved, voices and forms,
Voices most deeply musical, and forms
Of dazzling brightness, fell on his pleased ear,
And floated in calm pomp before his eyes.

And he was thankful too for many a gift
Which nature ministered in that dull town:
Green trees in nooks where green trees should not be,
The sun upon the high housetops, the vanes
Of the tall churches struck with merry rays,
Bright creatures in a region of their own—
The bubbling of cold water, and the gleam,
Half sad, half sunny, of the morning Thames.
Nay, we have that within ourselves, from which
We can create the world without,—wherewith
Sorrow doth make her hills and trees and streams,
And joy and hope their other hills and streams.

Oh happy, thus companioned as thou wert,
Thus visited, thus solaced, thus endowed!

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How shall I liken thee, kind spirit! thou
A separated being among men,
A foreigner among wild squares and streets,
And raised on high above the ebb and flow
Of city life! Upon the crowded quays,
Where hearts are turned to stones, still visited
By feelings and by thoughts that come from far
And are eternal, in the which a seed
Of endless, immaterial life is laid,—
Unrecognized thou still didst walk along.
Once I remember when the breathing land
Was ringing with the early voice of spring,
The valleys still in night's most sable hues
Were steeped; but one huge, awful peak, that stood
A kingly eminence above the rest,
I then beheld all diademed with light,
Crowned with the sunrise, marvellously crowned;
And clouds with yellow hems hung round its brow,
Vestments of the unseen ambassadors
From the great sun to earth: so too wert thou:
Thou hadst mysterious messages and songs
Come to thee from a distant realm of dreams;
And delicate creations from thee sprang
Graceful and radiant as the clouds at dawn.

Farewell, Old Man! For I may call thee old,
Though time's soft, onward flight had not yet reached
The limit of our days. The seasons four,
That on the shining pathway of the year
Glide forward in their magical array,
Had many moons to fill before the term
Named for the life of man. Still thou wert old,
Agèd before the time with such old age
As the sick heart best knows, when chilling frosts

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Have nipped the bud that promised once so much,
And struck the trustful blossom from the bough.
Years onward fly; but what heart heeds the flight?
It keeps its own sad calendar, and marks
Its powers grow dull, its feelings intermit.
May I not call ~ihim~i old, who called his life
A dream, and yet outlived that dream? Who lived
In a fair land of visions, and whose eye
Saw that fair land no more? Was he not old?

I dare not to regret thee, mild Old Man!
For a cold void was in thy heart; and thou
Didst vainly strive by means not sanctified
To win oblivion of thy lot. A cloud
Passed on thy gentle spirit; thou didst yearn
To make thy blood run boundingly again,
And oft didst catch in weak-willed eagerness
At the receding, many-coloured veil,
That severed the hard-featured world and thee.
Surely upon thy spirit there had come,
As on a little child, fresh in the world,
Curious perplexity from sights and sounds,
A consciousness thou didst not see aright.
But now thou sleepest in the dewy earth,
And He, who suffered for thee. bids us hope
With a consoling faith that all is well.

Farewell, meek Heart! Great Nature's voice is heard,
And all the thousand strings of her deep lyre,
Sounding a dirge-like song: low-breathing winds
Are making plaintive music in the woods,
And the clouds cluster round the bleak hill-tops
In stately sorrow, bidding man lament
In cheerful awe, and put more trust in God!