University of Virginia Library

Thus might we, like the travell'd monk, proceed,
And backward to the home of childhood wend,
How much of elemental heart and mind
Would then return, to whence of old it came,
Helping to fashion the unfolding Man!
For character is combination drawn
From time and scene, from circumstance and spot.
The brooks which prattled in gay Boyhood's ears,
Or on whose wavelets sail'd our tiny boat;
The haunted tree; the path we loved to wind,
The cowslipp'd valley or the hawthorn-bloom;
A widow's cottage, or some thatch'd abode
Where dwelt the vet'ran of our native vale,
Who smoothed our head, or tapp'd our rosy cheeks
With ancient humour,—all, with shaping charm
Secret but sure, that Being help to build
Which Manhood in its moral structure shows.
For, there is nothing which we feel, or see,
Admire, or welcome, but a forming power
From thence proceeds, and moulds the plastic mind.
Sunrise and sea, and solemn-vested night
When mute creation God's cathedral turns
For Nature's worship; with all social things,
The hand you grasp, the hearts your own selects,
The sigh re-echo'd, or the teardrop shed
Responsive,—none wield unavailing sway;
But secretly some inward tone impart,
Hereafter in your complex manhood felt
Or found. And, like as our sepulchral dust
Howe'er transmuted by organic change,
Under the blast of Death's awaking trump
Back to the Person, by attractive law
Shall rally, and a perfect body form,
So, may the structure of our moral frame,
Completely, from such causes manifold,
The after-finish of its Form educe.

But now, from scenes where childhood's dark-wing'd years
Had bleakly wafted his unfriended life
Through many a storm, to Mora's rustic wild,
Onward behold the dauntless trav'ller speed.
In that calm village, where a lowly sire
Drew the first breath, his genial soul partakes
The deep o'erflowings of affection's tide,
Tranquil as tender: placed amid kind hearts
Which beat fond echoes to his faithful own,
What peace he finds! what purified repose!
Not his the bosom cold, or shut, or stern;
Nor mock philanthropy, which makes a World
Its giant fav'rite, while domestic chords
Are unallow'd to vibrate through the breast,
And distant love proves mere neglect at home!
Fresh on his soul the dews of feeling lay,
Lovely and bright, as youth's unwither'd prime
Had witness'd; in the man remain'd the boy:
And they who wonder'd, when the hall of Worms
Erect and moveless saw the Hero stand,
Might here have seen him with a graceful stoop
Bend to the lowly; and with winning smile
Attractive, clasp the humblest child who came,
And all his glory into shade recall.
Simplicity alone was greatness here;
And, in the hush of this ancestral vale,
High on the wings of meditative bliss,
In psalms, and melodies of hymning joy
Mounted his heart beyond the rising gloom
Beneath him, o'er his earthly future spread.
Like some gay bird, which oft at golden noon
Soaring and singing, to the gates of Light
Wings its loved way in ecstasy and song,
Yet soon as earth's low atmosphere it tries
Drops the glad plume, and songless grows again.