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With him can talk; nor blush to waste a word

On creatures less intelligent and shrewd. And if the blustering wind that drives the clouds

Care not for me, he lingers round my door,

And makes me pastime when our tempers suit;

But, above all, my thoughts are my support,

My comfort: would that they were oftener fixed

On what, for guidance in the way that leads

To heaven, I know, by my Redeemer taught.'

The Matron ended-nor could I forbear
To exclaim-"O, happy! yielding to the law
Of these privations, richer in the main !---
While thankless thousands are opprest and
clogged

By ease and leisure; by the very wealth
And pride of opportunity made poor;
While tens of thousands falter in their path,
And sink, through utter want of cheering
light;

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For you the hours of labor do not flag; For you each evening hath its shining star,

And every sabbath-day its golden sun.'"

"Yes" said the Solitary with a smile That seemed to break from an expanding heart,

"The untutored bird may found, and so

construct,

And with such soft materials line, her nest
Fixed in the centre of a prickly brake,
That the thorns wound her not; they only
guard.

Powers not unjustly likened to those gifts
Of happy instinct which the woodland bird
Shares with her species, nature's grace
sometimes

Upon the individual doth confer Among her higher creatures born and trained

To use of reason. And, I own that, tired Of the ostentatious world-a swelling stage With empty actions and vain passions stuffed,

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So green, so fresh, so plentiful, as mine!' But thinly sown these natures; rare, at least,

The mutual aptitude of seed and soil That yields such kindly product. He, whose bed

Perhaps yon loose sods cover, the poor
Pensioner

Brought yesterday from our sequestered dell
Here to lie down in lasting quiet, he,
If living now, could otherwise report
Of rustic loneliness: that gray-haired Or-
phan—

So call him, for humanity to him
No par n was-feelingly could have told,
In life, in death, what solitude can breed
Of selfishness, and cruelty, and vice;
Or, if it breed not, hath not power to cure.
-But your compliance, Sir, with our request
My words too long have hindered."

Undeterred, And from the private struggles of mankind Perhaps incited rather, by these shocks, Hoping far less than I could wish to hope, In no ungracious opposition, given Far less than once I trusted and believed-To the confiding spirit of his own I love to hear of those who, not contend- Experienced faith, the everend Pastor

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In him who bled for man upon the cross;
Hallowed to revelation; and no less
To reason's mandates; and the hopes di-
vine

Of pure imagination ;-above all,
To charity, and love, that have provided,
Within these precints, a capacious bed
And receptacle, open to the good
And evil, to the just and the just;
In which they find an equal testing-place:
Even as the multidude of kindred brooks

And streams, whose murmur fills this hollow vale,

Whether their course be turbulent or smooth,

Their waters clear or sullied, all are lost Within the bosom of yon crystal Lake, And end their journey in the same repose!

And blest are they who sleep; and we that know,

While in a spot like this we breathe and walk, [ered That all beneath us by the wings are covOf motherly humanity, outspread

And gathering all within their tender shade Though loth and slow to come! A battlefield,

In stillness left when slaughter is no more, With this compared, makes a strange spectacle !

A dismal prospect yields the wild shore

strewn

With wrecks, and trod by feet of young and old

Wandering about in miserable search
Of friends or kindred, whom the angry sea
Restores not to their prayer! Ah! who
would think

That all the scattered subjects which compose

Earth's melancholy vision through the

space

Of all her climes-these wretched, these de praved,

To virtue lost, insensible or peace,
From the delights of charity cut off,
To pity dead, the oppressor and the op-
prest;

Tyrants who utter the destroying word,
And slaves who will consent to be de-
stroyed-

Were of one species with the sheltered few,

Who, with a dutiful and tender hand,
Lodged, in a dear appropriated spot,
This file of infants; some that never
breathed

The vital air; others, which, though allowed

That privilege, did yet expire too soon,
Or with too brief a warning, to admit
Administration he holy rite

That lovingly consigns the babe to the

arms

Of Jesus, and his everlasting care.
These that in trembling hope are laid
apart;

And the besprinkled nursling, unrequired
Till he begins to smile upon the breast
That feeds him; and the tottering little

one

Taken from air and sunshine when the

rose

Of infancy first blooms upon his cheek; The thinking, thoughtless, school-boy; the bold youth

Of soul impetuous, and the bashful maid
Smitten while all the promises of life
Are opening round her; those of middle
age,

Cast down while confident in strength they stand,

Like pillars fixed more firmly, as might

seem,

And more secure, by very weight of all That, for support, rests on them; the decayed

And burthensome; and lastly, that poor few

Whose light of reason is with age extinct; The hopeful and the hopeless, first and last,

The earliest summoned and the longest spared

Are here deposited, with tribute paid Various, but unto each some tribute paid; As if amid these peaceful hills and groves,

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And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?

Not from the naked Heart alone of Man (Though claiming high distinction upon earth [tears, As the sole spring and fountain-head of His own peculiar utterance for distress Or gladness)-No," the philosophic Priest Continued, " 'tis not in the vital seat Of feeling to produce them, without aid From the pure soul, the soul sublime and pure;

With her two faculties of eye and ear, The one by which a creature, whom his sins

Have rendered prone, can upward look to heaven;

The other that empowers him to perceive The voice of Deity, on height and plain, Whispering those truths in stillness, which the WORD,

To the four quarters of the winds, proclaims.

Not without such assistance could the use
Of these benign observances prevail :
Thus are they born, thus fostered, thus
maintained;

And by the care prospective of our wise Forefathers, who, to guard against the shocks

The fluctuation and decay of things,
Embodied and established these high truths
In solemn institutions :-men convinced
That life is love and immortality,
The being one, and one the element.
There lies the channel, and original bed,
From the beginning, hollowed out and
scooped

For Man's affections-else betrayed and lost,

And swallowed up 'mid deserts infinite! This is the genuine course, the aim, and end

Of prescient reason; all conclusions else Are abject, vain, presumptuous, and per

verse.

The faith partaking of those holy times.
Life, I repeat, is energy of love
Divine or human; exercised in pain,
In strife, and tribulation; and ordained,
If so approved and sanctified, to pass,
Through shades and silent rest, to endless
joy."

BOOK SIXTH.

THE CHURCH-YARD AMONG THE

MOUNTAINS.

ARGUMENT.

Poet's Address to the State and Church of England-The Pastor not inferior to the ancient Worthies of the Church-He begins his Narratives with an instance of unrequited Love-Anguish of mind, subdued, and how

The lonely Miner-An instance of perseverance-Which leads by contrast to an example of abused talents, irresolution, and weakness-Solitary, applying this covertly to his own case, asks for an instance of some Stranger, whose dispositions may have led him to end his days here-Pastor, in answer, gives an account of the harmonizing influence of Solitude upon two men of opposite principles, who had encountered agitations in pube

of the Pastor What subjects he will exclude from his Narrative-Conversation upon this -Instance of an unamiable character, a Female, and why given-Contrasted with this, a meek sufferer, from unguarded and betrayed love-Instance of heavier guilt, and its consequences to the Offender-With this instance of a Marriage Contract broken is contrasted one of a Widower, evidencing his faithful affection towards his deceased wife by his care of their female Children.

HAIL to the crown by Freedom shaped-to gird

An English Sovereign's brow! and to the Whereon he sits!

throne

[lie In veneration and the people's love; Whose deep foundations Whose steps are equity, whose seat is law. lic life-The rule by which Peace may be obtained expressed, and where- Solitary-Hail to the State of England! And conhints at an overpowering Fatality-Answer

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