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217
FUNERAL OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.
Crossthwaite Tower sends forth a knell;
Skiddaw knows its meaning well;
And the mountain veils its head,
As they bear away the dead;
Scawfell hides his towering height;
Glaramara shrinks from sight;
All the solemn steeps around
Hide their faces at the sound;
Derwent hears it; Greta hears;
And, while the clouds supply their tears,
The troubled rivers as they swell
Hoarsely chide that funeral bell.
Herbert's haunt, on Keswick-mere,
Feels the ghost of genius near;
Lodore sends a deeper wail
To the rough heart of Borrowdale;
Stream and lake, and force and fell,
Sylvan isle and rocky dell,
Their part in this day's sorrow bear;
And heavier make the gloom they share;
For our human feelings give
Sympathies that in them live.
Skiddaw knows its meaning well;
And the mountain veils its head,
As they bear away the dead;
Scawfell hides his towering height;
Glaramara shrinks from sight;
All the solemn steeps around
Hide their faces at the sound;
Derwent hears it; Greta hears;
And, while the clouds supply their tears,
The troubled rivers as they swell
Hoarsely chide that funeral bell.
218
Feels the ghost of genius near;
Lodore sends a deeper wail
To the rough heart of Borrowdale;
Stream and lake, and force and fell,
Sylvan isle and rocky dell,
Their part in this day's sorrow bear;
And heavier make the gloom they share;
For our human feelings give
Sympathies that in them live.
Where a hedge of blackthorn blooms
Close beside the place of tombs,
As the Bearers bear the Dead,
Pacing slow with solemn tread,
Two feather'd choristers of spring
To the dark procession sing:
Heedless of the driving rain,
Fearless of the mourning train,
Perch'd upon a trembling stem
They sing the poet's requiem.
Some sacred frenzy has possest
These warblers of the russet breast,
To honour thus with friendship brave,
A Poet's passage to his grave.
Poet, what avails it now
That the laurel graced thy brow?—
What avail'd it years before
The angel death thy summons bore?
When thy noble mind o'erwrought
Stranded lay, a wreck of thought?
Thy bruised spirit, all that while,
Was blind to fame's approving smile.
Deaf and careless wert thou then
To the plausive tongues of men,
As now to notes—more sweet than words—
Flowing from the hearts of birds;
As now to the sepulchral bell
Which smites the vale that loved thee well.
Close beside the place of tombs,
As the Bearers bear the Dead,
Pacing slow with solemn tread,
Two feather'd choristers of spring
To the dark procession sing:
Heedless of the driving rain,
Fearless of the mourning train,
Perch'd upon a trembling stem
They sing the poet's requiem.
Some sacred frenzy has possest
These warblers of the russet breast,
219
A Poet's passage to his grave.
Poet, what avails it now
That the laurel graced thy brow?—
What avail'd it years before
The angel death thy summons bore?
When thy noble mind o'erwrought
Stranded lay, a wreck of thought?
Thy bruised spirit, all that while,
Was blind to fame's approving smile.
Deaf and careless wert thou then
To the plausive tongues of men,
As now to notes—more sweet than words—
Flowing from the hearts of birds;
As now to the sepulchral bell
Which smites the vale that loved thee well.
Honour built on virtue's rock
Nor disease nor death can shock.
Poet, virtue's priest wert thou!
So yet the laurel decks thy brow.
This avails thee now and ever,
Guerdon of thy high endeavour;
Love and honour ne'er forsake thee,
Till the trump of doom awake thee:
Tolls the bell for vanish'd worth—
Earth to earth surrenders earth.
Life has lower'd death sublime
Down the shallow pit of time;
Thence, when ripen'd in that mine,
A gem on heaven's brow to shine:
Hid, till then, its precious light
By the jealous miser night,
And yet play'd on all the while
By the deep supernal smile
That can pierce the stone and lead,
Which o'erlay the virtuous dead—
Just as well as it can reach
Planets in their gulfs of air,
Lending brightness due to each
In its duly portion'd share:
To the sun its light creative,
To the moon its borrow'd force,
To the stars a lustre native
From the One Eternal Source!
Nor disease nor death can shock.
Poet, virtue's priest wert thou!
So yet the laurel decks thy brow.
220
Guerdon of thy high endeavour;
Love and honour ne'er forsake thee,
Till the trump of doom awake thee:
Tolls the bell for vanish'd worth—
Earth to earth surrenders earth.
Life has lower'd death sublime
Down the shallow pit of time;
Thence, when ripen'd in that mine,
A gem on heaven's brow to shine:
Hid, till then, its precious light
By the jealous miser night,
And yet play'd on all the while
By the deep supernal smile
That can pierce the stone and lead,
Which o'erlay the virtuous dead—
Just as well as it can reach
Planets in their gulfs of air,
Lending brightness due to each
In its duly portion'd share:
To the sun its light creative,
To the moon its borrow'd force,
To the stars a lustre native
From the One Eternal Source!
Mr. Southey was buried on the 24th of March, 1843, in the north-west corner of Crossthwaite Church-yard, Keswick, about half a mile from Greta Hall, the house which had been his home for forty years, when he there died.
The writer, who was present at the funeral, can apologise for the introduction of so trifling, but not unaffecting, an incident as that related of these birds, by assuring the reader that their prolonged singing in the situation, and under the circumstances alluded to, is a fact which attracted his own notice.
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