BOOK FIFTH
THE PASTOR
"FAREWELL, deep Valley, with thy one rude House,
And its small lot of life-supporting fields,
And guardian rocks!--Farewell, attractive seat!
To the still influx of the morning light
Open, and day's pure cheerfulness, but veiled
From human observation, as if yet
Primeval forests wrapped thee round with dark
Impenetrable shade; once more farewell,
Majestic circuit, beautiful abyss,
By Nature destined from the birth of things 10
For quietness profound!"
Upon the side
Of that brown ridge, sole outlet of the vale
Which foot of boldest stranger would attempt,
Lingering behind my comrades, thus I breathed
A parting tribute to a spot that seemed
Like the fixed centre of a troubled world.
Again I halted with reverted eyes;
The chain that would not slacken, was at length
Snapt,--and, pursuing leisurely my way,
How vain, thought I, is it by change of place 20
To seek that comfort which the mind denies;
Yet trial and temptation oft are shunned
Wisely; and by such tenure do we hold
Frail life's possessions, that even they whose fate
Yields no peculiar reason of complaint
Might, by the promise that is here, be won
To steal from active duties, and embrace
Obscurity, and undisturbed repose.
--Knowledge, methinks, in these disordered times,
Should be allowed a privilege to have 30
Her anchorites, like piety of old;
Men, who, from faction sacred, and unstained
By war, might, if so minded, turn aside
Uncensured, and subsist, a scattered few
Living to God and nature, and content
With that communion. Consecrated be
The spots where such abide! But happier still
The Man, whom, furthermore, a hope attends
That meditation and research may guide
His privacy to principles and powers 40
Discovered or invented; or set forth,
Through his acquaintance with the ways of truth,
In lucid order; so that, when his course
Is run, some faithful eulogist may say,
He sought not praise, and praise did overlook
His unobtrusive merit; but his life,
Sweet to himself, was exercised in good
That shall survive his name and memory.
Acknowledgments of gratitude sincere
Accompanied these musings; fervent thanks 50
For my own peaceful lot and happy choice;
A choice that from the passions of the world
Withdrew, and fixed me in a still retreat;
Sheltered, but not to social duties lost,
Secluded, but not buried; and with song
Cheering my days, and with industrious thought;
With the ever-welcome company of books;
With virtuous friendship's soul-sustaining aid,
And with the blessings of domestic love.
Thus occupied in mind I paced along, 60
Following the rugged road, by sledge or wheel
Worn in the moorland, till I overtook
My two Associates, in the morning sunshine
Halting together on a rocky knoll,
Whence the bare road descended rapidly
To the green meadows of another vale.
Here did our pensive Host put forth his hand
In sign of farewell. "Nay," the old Man said,
"The fragrant air its coolness still retains;
The herds and flocks are yet abroad to crop 70
The dewy grass; you cannot leave us now,
We must not part at this inviting hour."
He yielded, though reluctant; for his mind
Instinctively disposed him to retire
To his own covert; as a billow, heaved
Upon the beach, rolls back into the sea.
--So we descend: and winding round a rock
Attain a point that showed the valley--stretched
In length before us; and, not distant far,
Upon a rising ground a grey church-tower, 80
Whose battlements were screened by tufted trees.
And towards a crystal Mere, that lay beyond
Among steep hills and woods embosomed, flowed
A copious stream with boldly-winding course;
Here traceable, there hidden--there again
To sight restored, and glittering in the sun.
On the stream's bank, and everywhere, appeared
Fair dwellings, single, or in social knots;
Some scattered o'er the level, others perched
On the hill sides, a cheerful quiet scene, 90
Now in its morning purity arrayed.
"As 'mid some happy valley of the Alps,"
Said I, "once happy, ere tyrannic power,
Wantonly breaking in upon the Swiss,
Destroyed their unoffending commonwealth,
A popular equality reigns here,
Save for yon stately House beneath whose roof
A rural lord might dwell."--"No feudal pomp,
Or power," replied the Wanderer, "to that House
Belongs, but there in his allotted Home 100
Abides, from year to year, a genuine Priest,
The shepherd of his flock; or, as a king
Is styled, when most affectionately praised,
The father of his people. Such is he;
And rich and poor, and young and old, rejoice
Under his spiritual sway. He hath vouchsafed
To me some portion of a kind regard;
And something also of his inner mind
Hath he imparted--but I speak of him
As he is known to all.
The calm delights 110
Of unambitious piety he chose,
And learning's solid dignity; though born
Of knightly race, nor wanting powerful friends.
Hither, in prime of manhood, he withdrew
From academic bowers. He loved the spot--
Who does not love his native soil?--he prized
The ancient rural character, composed
Of simple manners, feelings unsupprest
And undisguised, and strong and serious thought
A character reflected in himself, 120
With such embellishment as well beseems
His rank and sacred function. This deep vale
Winds far in reaches hidden from our sight,
And one a turreted manorial hall
Adorns, in which the good Man's ancestors
Have dwelt through ages, Patrons of this Cure.
To them, and to his own judicious pains,
The Vicar's dwelling, and the whole domain,
Owes that presiding aspect which might well
Attract your notice; statelier than could else 130
Have been bestowed, through course of common chance,
On an unwealthy mountain Benefice."
This said, oft pausing, we pursued our way;
Nor reached the village-churchyard till the sun
Travelling at steadier pace than ours, had risen
Above the summits of the highest hills,
And round our path darted oppressive beams.
As chanced, the portals of the sacred Pile
Stood open; and we entered. On my frame,
At such transition from the fervid air, 140
A grateful coolness fell, that seemed to strike
The heart, in concert with that temperate awe
And natural reverence which the place inspired.
Not raised in nice proportions was the pile,
But large and massy; for duration built;
With pillars crowded, and the roof upheld
By naked rafters intricately crossed,
Like leafless underboughs, in some thick wood,
All withered by the depth of shade above.
Admonitory texts inscribed the walls, 150
Each, in its ornamental scroll, enclosed;
Each also crowned with winged heads--a pair
Of rudely-painted Cherubim. The floor
Of nave and aisle, in unpretending guise,
Was occupied by oaken benches ranged
In seemly rows; the chancel only showed
Some vain distinctions, marks of earthly state
By immemorial privilege allowed;
Though with the Encincture's special sanctity
But ill according. An heraldic shield, 160
Varying its tincture with the changeful light,
Imbued the altar-window; fixed aloft
A faded hatchment hung, and one by time
Yet undiscoloured. A capacious pew
Of sculptured oak stood here, with drapery lined;
And marble monuments were here displayed
Thronging the walls; and on the floor beneath
Sepulchral stones appeared, with emblems graven
And foot-worn epitaphs, and some with small
And shining effigies of brass inlaid. 170
The tribute by these various records claimed,
Duly we paid, each after each, and read
The ordinary chronicle of birth,
Office, alliance, and promotion--all
Ending in dust; of upright magistrates,
Grave doctors strenuous for the mother-church,
And uncorrupted senators, alike
To king and people true. A brazen plate,
Not easily deciphered, told of one
Whose course of earthly honour was begun 180
In quality of page among the train
Of the eighth Henry, when he crossed the seas
His royal state to show, and prove his strength
In tournament, upon the fields of France.
Another tablet registered the death,
And praised the gallant bearing, of a Knight
Tried in the sea-fights of the second Charles.
Near this brave Knight his Father lay entombed;
And, to the silent language giving voice,
I read,--how in his manhood's earlier day 190
He, 'mid the afflictions of intestine war
And rightful government subverted, found
One only solace--that he had espoused
A virtuous Lady tenderly beloved
For her benign perfections; and yet more
Endeared to him, for this, that, in her state
Of wedlock richly crowned with Heaven's regard,
She with a numerous issue filled his house,
Who throve, like plants, uninjured by the storm
That laid their country waste. No need to speak 200
Of less particular notices assigned
To Youth or Maiden gone before their time,
And Matrons and unwedded Sisters old;
Whose charity and goodness were rehearsed
In modest panegyric.
"These dim lines,
What would they tell?" said I,--but, from the task
Of puzzling out that faded narrative,
With whisper soft my venerable Friend
Called me; and, looking down the darksome aisle,
I saw the Tenant of the lonely vale 210
Standing apart; with curved arm reclined
On the baptismal font; his pallid face
Upturned, as if his mind were rapt, or lost
In some abstraction;--gracefully he stood,
The semblance bearing of a sculptured form
That leans upon a monumental urn
In peace, from morn to night, from year to year.
Him from that posture did the Sexton rouse;
Who entered, humming carelessly a tune,
Continuation haply of the notes 220
That had beguiled the work from which he came,
With spade and mattock o'er his shoulder hung;
To be deposited, for future need,
In their appointed place. The pale Recluse
Withdrew; and straight we followed,--to a spot
Where sun and shade were intermixed; for there
A broad oak, stretching forth its leafy arms
From an adjoining pasture, overhung
Small space of that green churchyard with a light
And pleasant awning. On the moss-grown wall 230
My ancient Friend and I together took
Our seats; and thus the Solitary spake,
Standing before us:--
"Did you note the mien
Of that self-solaced, easy-hearted churl,
Death's hireling, who scoops out his neighbour's grave,
Or wraps an old acquaintance up in clay,
All unconcerned as he would bind a sheaf,
Or plant a tree. And did you hear his voice?
I was abruptly summoned by the sound
From some affecting images and thoughts, 240
Which then were silent; but crave utterance now.
Much," he continued, with dejected look,
"Much, yesterday, was said in glowing phrase,
Of our sublime dependencies, and hopes
For future states of being; and the wings
Of speculation, joyfully outspread,
Hovered above our destiny on earth:
But stoop, and place the prospect of the soul
In sober contrast with reality,
And man's substantial life. If this mute earth 250
Of what it holds could speak, and every grave
Were as a volume, shut, yet capable
Of yielding its contents to eye and ear,
We should recoil, stricken with sorrow and shame,
To see disclosed, by such dread proof, how ill
That which is done accords with what is known
To reason, and by conscience is enjoined;
How idly, how perversely, life's whole course,
To this conclusion, deviates from the line,
Or of the end stops short, proposed to all 260
At her aspiring outset.
Mark the babe
Not long accustomed to this breathing world;
One that hath barely learned to shape a smile,
Though yet irrational of soul, to grasp
With tiny finger--to let fall a tear;
And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves,
To stretch his limbs, bemocking, as might seem,
The outward functions of intelligent man;
A grave proficient in amusive feats
Of puppetry, that from the lap declare 270
His expectations, and announce his claims
To that inheritance which millions rue
That they were ever born to! In due time
A day of solemn ceremonial comes;
When they, who for this Minor hold in trust
Rights that transcend the loftiest heritage
Of mere humanity, present their Charge,
For this occasion daintily adorned,
At the baptismal font. And when the pure
And consecrating element hath cleansed 280
The original stain, the child is there received
Into the second ark, Christ's church, with trust
That he, from wrath redeemed, therein shall float
Over the billows of this troublesome world
To the fair land of everlasting life.
Corrupt affections, covetous desires,
Are all renounced; high as the thought of man
Can carry virtue, virtue is professed;
A dedication made, a promise given
For due provision to control and guide, 290
And unremitting progress to ensure
In holiness and truth."
"You cannot blame,"
Here interposing fervently I said,
"Rites which attest that Man by nature lies
Bedded for good and evil in a gulf
Fearfully low; nor will your judgment scorn
Those services, whereby attempt is made
To lift the creature toward that eminence
On which, now fallen, erewhile in majesty
He stood; or if not so, whose top serene 300
At least he feels 'tis given him to descry;
Not without aspirations, evermore
Returning, and injunctions from within
Doubt to cast off and weariness; in trust
That what the Soul perceives, if glory lost,
May be, through pains and persevering hope,
Recovered; or, if hitherto unknown,
Lies within reach, and one day shall be gained."
"I blame them not," he calmly answered--"no;
The outward ritual and established forms 310
With which communities of men invest
These inward feelings, and the aspiring vows
To which the lips give public utterance
Are both a natural process; and by me
Shall pass uncensured; though the issue prove,
Bringing from age to age its own reproach,
Incongruous, impotent, and blank.--But, oh!
If to be weak is to be wretched--miserable,
As the lost Angel by a human voice
Hath mournfully pronounced, then, in my mind, 320
Far better not to move at all than move
By impulse sent from such illusive power,--
That finds and cannot fasten down; that grasps
And is rejoiced, and loses while it grasps;
That tempts, emboldens--for a time sustains,
And then betrays; accuses and inflicts
Remorseless punishment; and so retreads
The inevitable circle: better far
Than this, to graze the herb in thoughtless peace,
By foresight or remembrance, undisturbed! 330
Philosophy! and thou more vaunted name
Religion! with thy statelier retinue,
Faith, Hope, and Charity--from the visible world
Choose for your emblems whatsoe'er ye find
Of safest guidance or of firmest trust--
The torch, the star, the anchor; nor except
The cross itself, at whose unconscious feet
The generations of mankind have knelt
Ruefully seized, and shedding bitter tears,
And through that conflict seeking rest--of you, 340
High-titled Powers, am I constrained to ask,
Here standing, with the unvoyageable sky
In faint reflection of infinitude
Stretched overhead, and at my pensive feet
A subterraneous magazine of bones,
In whose dark vaults my own shall soon be laid,
Where are your triumphs? your dominion where?
And in what age admitted and confirmed?
--Not for a happy land do I enquire,
Island or grove, that hides a blessed few 350
Who, with obedience willing and sincere,
To your serene authorities conform;
But whom, I ask, of individual Souls,
Have ye withdrawn from passion's crooked ways,
Inspired, and thoroughly fortified?--If the heart
Could be inspected to its inmost folds
By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,
Who shall be named--in the resplendent line
Of sages, martyrs, confessors--the man
Whom the best might of faith, wherever fixed, 360
For one day's little compass, has preserved
From painful and discreditable shocks
Of contradiction, from some vague desire
Culpably cherished, or corrupt relapse
To some unsanctioned fear?"
"If this be so,
And Man," said I, "be in his noblest shape
Thus pitiably infirm; then, he who made,
And who shall judge the creature, will forgive.
--Yet, in its general tenor, your complaint
Is all too true; and surely not misplaced: 370
For, from this pregnant spot of ground, such thoughts
Rise to the notice of a serious mind
By natural exhalation. With the dead
In their repose, the living in their mirth,
Who can reflect, unmoved, upon the round
Of smooth and solemnized complacencies,
By which, on Christian lands, from age to age
Profession mocks performance. Earth is sick,
And Heaven is weary, of the hollow words
Which States and Kingdoms utter when they talk 380
Of truth and justice. Turn to private life
And social neighbourhood; look we to ourselves;
A light of duty shines on every day
For all; and yet how few are warmed or cheered!
How few who mingle with their fellow-men
And still remain self-governed, and apart,
Like this our honoured Friend; and thence acquire
Right to expect his vigorous decline,
That promises to the end a blest old age!"
"Yet," with a smile of triumph thus exclaimed 390
The Solitary, "in the life of man,
If to the poetry of common speech
Faith may be given, we see as in a glass
A true reflection of the circling year,
With all its seasons. Grant that Spring is there,
In spite of many a rough untoward blast,
Hopeful and promising with buds and flowers;
Yet where is glowing Summer's long rich day,
That 'ought' to follow faithfully expressed?
And mellow Autumn, charged with bounteous fruit, 400
Where is she imaged? in what favoured clime
Her lavish pomp, and ripe magnificence?
--Yet, while the better part is missed, the worse
In man's autumnal season is set forth
With a resemblance not to be denied,
And that contents him; bowers that hear no more
The voice of gladness, less and less supply
Of outward sunshine and internal warmth;
And, with this change, sharp air and falling leaves,
Foretelling aged Winter's desolate sway. 410
How gay the habitations that bedeck
This fertile valley! Not a house but seems
To give assurance of content within;
Embosomed happiness, and placid love;
As if the sunshine of the day were met
With answering brightness in the hearts of all
Who walk this favoured ground. But chance-regards,
And notice forced upon incurious ears;
These, if these only, acting in despite
Of the encomiums by my Friend pronounced 420
On humble life, forbid the judging mind
To trust the smiling aspect of this fair
And noiseless commonwealth. The simple race
Of mountaineers (by nature's self removed
From foul temptations, and by constant care
Of a good shepherd tended as themselves
Do tend their flocks) partake man's general lot
With little mitigation. They escape,
Perchance, the heavier woes of guilt; feel not
The tedium of fantastic idleness: 430
Yet life, as with the multitude, with them
Is fashioned like an ill-constructed tale;
That on the outset wastes its gay desires,
Its fair adventures, its enlivening hopes,
And pleasant interests--for the sequel leaving
Old things repeated with diminished grace;
And all the laboured novelties at best
Imperfect substitutes, whose use and power
Evince the want and weakness whence they spring."
While in this serious mood we held discourse, 440
The reverend Pastor toward the churchyard gate
Approached; and, with a mild respectful air
Of native cordiality, our Friend
Advanced to greet him. With a gracious mien
Was he received, and mutual joy prevailed.
Awhile they stood in conference, and I guess
That he, who now upon the mossy wall
Sate by my side, had vanished, if a wish
Could have transferred him to the flying clouds,
Or the least penetrable hiding-place 450
In his own valley's rocky guardianship.
--For me, I looked upon the pair, well pleased:
Nature had framed them both, and both were marked
By circumstance, with intermixture fine
Of contrast and resemblance. To an oak
Hardy and grand, a weather-beaten oak,
Fresh in the strength and majesty of age,
One might be likened: flourishing appeared,
Though somewhat past the fulness of his prime,
The other--like a stately sycamore, 460
That spreads, in gentle pomp, its honied shade.
A general greeting was exchanged; and soon
The Pastor learned that his approach had given
A welcome interruption to discourse
Grave, and in truth too often sad.--"Is Man
A child of hope? Do generations press
On generations, without progress made?
Halts the individual, ere his hairs be grey,
Perforce? Are we a creature in whom good
Preponderates, or evil? Doth the will 470
Acknowledge reason's law? A living power
Is virtue, or no better than a name,
Fleeting as health or beauty, and unsound?
So that the only substance which remains,
(For thus the tenor of complaint hath run)
Among so many shadows, are the pains
And penalties of miserable life,
Doomed to decay, and then expire in dust!
--Our cogitations, this way have been drawn,
These are the points," the Wanderer said, "on which 480
Our inquest turns.--Accord, good Sir! the light
Of your experience to dispel this gloom:
By your persuasive wisdom shall the heart
That frets, or languishes, be stilled and cheered."
"Our nature," said the Priest, in mild reply,
"Angels nay weigh and fathom: they perceive,
With undistempered and unclouded spirit,
The object as it is; but, for ourselves,
That speculative height 'we' may not reach.
The good and evil are our own; and we 490
Are that which we would contemplate from far.
Knowledge, for us, is difficult to gain--
Is difficult to gain, and hard to keep--
As virtue's self; like virtue is beset
With snares; tried, tempted, subject to decay.
Love, admiration, fear, desire, and hate,
Blind were we without these: through these alone
Are capable to notice or discern
Or to record; we judge, but cannot be
Indifferent judges. 'Spite of proudest boast, 500
Reason, best reason, is to imperfect man
An effort only, and a noble aim;
A crown, an attribute of sovereign power,
Still to be courted--never to be won.
--Look forth, or each man dive into himself;
What sees he but a creature too perturbed;
That is transported to excess; that yearns,
Regrets, or trembles, wrongly, or too much;
Hopes rashly, in disgust as rash recoils;
Battens on spleen, or moulders in despair; 510
Thus comprehension fails, and truth is missed;
Thus darkness and delusion round our path
Spread, from disease, whose subtle injury lurks
Within the very faculty of sight.
Yet for the general purposes of faith
In Providence, for solace and support,
We may not doubt that who can best subject
The will to reason's law, can strictliest live
And act in that obedience, he shall gain
The clearest apprehension of those truths, 520
Which unassisted reason's utmost power
Is too infirm to reach. But, waiving this,
And our regards confining within bounds
Of less exalted consciousness, through which
The very multitude are free to range,
We safely may affirm that human life
Is either fair and tempting, a soft scene
Grateful to sight, refreshing to the soul,
Or a forbidden tract of cheerless view;
Even as the same is looked at, or approached. 530
Thus, when in changeful April fields are white
With new-fallen snow, if from the sullen north
Your walk conduct you hither, ere the sun
Hath gained his noontide height, this churchyard, filled
With mounds transversely lying side by side
From east to west, before you will appear
An unillumined, blank, and dreary plain,
With more than wintry cheerlessness and gloom
Saddening the heart. Go forward, and look back;
Look, from the quarter whence the lord of light, 540
Of life, of love, and gladness doth dispense
His beams; which, unexcluded in their fall,
Upon the southern side of every grave
Have gently exercised a melting power;
'Then' will a vernal prospect greet your eye,
All fresh and beautiful, and green and bright,
Hopeful and cheerful:--vanished is the pall
That overspread and chilled the sacred turf,
Vanished or hidden; and the whole domain,
To some, too lightly minded, might appear 550
A meadow carpet for the dancing hours.
--This contrast, not unsuitable to life,
Is to that other state more apposite,
Death and its two-fold aspect! wintry--one,
Cold, sullen, blank, from hope and joy shut out;
The other, which the ray divine hath touched,
Replete with vivid promise, bright as spring."
"We see, then, as we feel," the Wanderer thus
With a complacent animation spake,
"And in your judgment, Sir! the mind's repose 560
On evidence is not to be ensured
By act of naked reason. Moral truth
Is no mechanic structure, built by rule;
And which, once built, retains a stedfast shape
And undisturbed proportions; but a thing
Subject, you deem, to vital accidents;
And, like the water-lily, lives and thrives,
Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head
Floats on the tossing waves. With joy sincere
I re-salute these sentiments confirmed 570
By your authority. But how acquire
The inward principle that gives effect
To outward argument; the passive will
Meek to admit; the active energy,
Strong and unbounded to embrace, and firm
To keep and cherish? how shall man unite
With self-forgetting tenderness of heart
An earth-despising dignity of soul?
Wise in that union, and without it blind!"
"The way," said I, "to court, if not obtain 580
The ingenuous mind, apt to be set aright;
This, in the lonely dell discoursing, you
Declared at large; and by what exercise
From visible nature, or the inner self
Power may be trained, and renovation brought
To those who need the gift. But, after all,
Is aught so certain as that man is doomed
To breathe beneath a vault of ignorance?
The natural roof of that dark house in which
His soul is pent! How little can be known-- 590
This is the wise man's sigh; how far we err--
This is the good man's not unfrequent pang!
And they perhaps err least, the lowly class
Whom a benign necessity compels
To follow reason's least ambitious course;
Such do I mean who, unperplexed by doubt,
And unincited by a wish to look
Into high objects farther than they may,
Pace to and fro, from morn till eventide,
The narrow avenue of daily toil 600
For daily bread."
"Yes," buoyantly exclaimed
The pale Recluse--"praise to the sturdy plough,
And patient spade; praise to the simple crook,
And ponderous loom--resounding while it holds
Body and mind in one captivity;
And let the light mechanic tool be hailed
With honour; which, encasing by the power
Of long companionship, the artist's hand,
Cuts off that hand, with all its world of nerves,
From a too busy commerce with the heart! 610
--Inglorious implements of craft and toil,
Both ye that shape and build, and ye that force,
By slow solicitation, earth to yield
Her annual bounty, sparingly dealt forth
With wise reluctance; you would I extol,
Not for gross good alone which ye produce,
But for the impertinent and ceaseless strife
Of proofs and reasons ye preclude--in those
Who to your dull society are born,
And with their humble birthright rest content. 620
--Would I had ne'er renounced it!"
A slight flush
Of moral anger previously had tinged
The old Man's cheek; but, at this closing turn
Of self-reproach, it passed away. Said he,
"That which we feel we utter; as we think
So have we argued; reaping for our pains
No visible recompense. For our relief
You," to the Pastor turning thus he spake,
"Have kindly interposed. May I entreat
Your further help? The mine of real life 630
Dig for us; and present us, in the shape
Of virgin ore, that gold which we, by pains
Fruitless as those of aery alchemists,
Seek from the torturing crucible. There lies
Around us a domain where you have long
Watched both the outward course and inner heart:
Give us, for our abstractions, solid facts;
For our disputes, plain pictures. Say what man
He is who cultivates yon hanging field;
What qualities of mind she bears, who comes, 640
For morn and evening service, with her pail,
To that green pasture; place before our sight
The family who dwell within yon house
Fenced round with glittering laurel; or in that
Below, from which the curling smoke ascends.
Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,
And have the dead around us, take from them
Your instances; for they are both best known,
And by frail man most equitably judged.
Epitomise the life; pronounce, you can, 650
Authentic epitaphs on some of these
Who, from their lowly mansions hither brought,
Beneath this turf lie mouldering at our feet:
So, by your records, may our doubts be solved;
And so, not searching higher we may learn
'To prize the breath we share with human kind;
And look upon the dust of man with awe'."
The Priest replied--"An office you impose
For which peculiar requisites are mine;
Yet much, I feel, is wanting--else the task 660
Would be most grateful. True indeed it is
That they whom death has hidden from our sight
Are worthiest of the mind's regard; with these
The future cannot contradict the past:
Mortality's last exercise and proof
Is undergone; the transit made that shows
The very Soul, revealed as she departs.
Yet, on your first suggestion, will I give,
Ere we descend into these silent vaults,
One picture from the living.
You behold, 670
High on the breast of yon dark mountain, dark
With stony barrenness, a shining speck
Bright as a sunbeam sleeping till a shower
Brush it away, or cloud pass over it;
And such it might be deemed--a sleeping sunbeam;
But 'tis a plot of cultivated ground,
Cut off, an island in the dusky waste;
And that attractive brightness is its own.
The lofty site, by nature framed to tempt
Amid a wilderness of rocks and stones 680
The tiller's hand, a hermit might have chosen,
For opportunity presented, thence
Far forth to send his wandering eye o'er land
And ocean, and look down upon the works,
The habitations, and the ways of men,
Himself unseen! But no tradition tells
That ever hermit dipped his maple dish
In the sweet spring that lurks 'mid yon green fields;
And no such visionary views belong
To those who occupy and till the ground, 690
High on that mountain where they long have dwelt
A wedded pair in childless solitude.
A house of stones collected on the spot,
By rude hands built, with rocky knolls in front.
Backed also by a ledge of rock, whose crest
Of birch-trees waves over the chimney top;
A rough abode--in colour, shape, and size,
Such as in unsafe times of border-war
Might have been wished for and contrived, to elude
The eye of roving plunderer--for their need 700
Suffices; and unshaken bears the assault
Of their most dreaded foe, the strong Southwest
In anger blowing from the distant sea.
--Alone within her solitary hut;
There, or within the compass of her fields,
At any moment may the Dame be found,
True as the stock-dove to her shallow nest
And to the grove that holds it. She beguiles
By intermingled work of house and field
The summer's day, and winter's; with success 710
Not equal, but sufficient to maintain,
Even at the worst, a smooth stream of content,
Until the expected hour at which her Mate
From the far-distant quarry's vault returns;
And by his converse crowns a silent day
With evening cheerfulness. In powers of mind,
In scale of culture, few among my flock
Hold lower rank than this sequestered pair:
But true humility descends from heaven;
And that best gift of heaven hath fallen on them; 720
Abundant recompense for every want.
--Stoop from your height, ye proud, and copy these!
Who, in their noiseless dwelling-place, can hear
The voice of wisdom whispering scripture texts
For the mind's government, or temper's peace;
And recommending for their mutual need,
Forgiveness, patience, hope, and charity!"
"Much was I pleased," the grey-haired Wanderer said,
"When to those shining fields our notice first
You turned; and yet more pleased have from your lips 730
Gathered this fair report of them who dwell
In that retirement; whither, by such course
Of evil hap and good as oft awaits
A tired way-faring man, once 'I' was brought
While traversing alone yon mountain pass.
Dark on my road the autumnal evening fell,
And night succeeded with unusual gloom,
So hazardous that feet and hands became
Guides better than mine eyes--until a light
High in the gloom appeared, too high, methought, 740
For human habitation; but I longed
To reach it, destitute of other hope.
I looked with steadiness as sailors look
On the north star, or watch-tower's distant lamp,
And saw the light--now fixed--and shifting now--
Not like a dancing meteor, but in line
Of never-varying motion, to and fro.
It is no night-fire of the naked hills,
Thought I--some friendly covert must be near.
With this persuasion thitherward my steps 750
I turn, and reach at last the guiding light;
Joy to myself! but to the heart of her
Who there was standing on the open hill,
(The same kind Matron whom your tongue hath praised)
Alarm and disappointment! The alarm
Ceased, when she learned through what mishap I came,
And by what help had gained those distant fields.
Drawn from her cottage, on that aery height,
Bearing a lantern in her hand she stood,
Or paced the ground--to guide her Husband home, 760
By that unwearied signal, kenned afar;
An anxious duty! which the lofty site,
Traversed but by a few irregular paths,
Imposes, whensoe'er untoward chance
Detains him after his accustomed hour
Till night lies black upon the ground. 'But come,
Come,' said the Matron, 'to our poor abode;
Those dark rocks hide it!' Entering, I beheld
A blazing fire--beside a cleanly hearth
Sate down; and to her office, with leave asked, 770
The Dame returned.
Or ere that glowing pile
Of mountain turf required the builder's hand
Its wasted splendour to repair, the door
Opened, and she re-entered with glad looks,
Her Helpmate following. Hospitable fare,
Frank conversation, made the evening's treat:
Need a bewildered traveller wish for more?
But more was given; I studied as we sate
By the bright fire, the good Man's form, and face
Not less than beautiful; an open brow 780
Of undisturbed humanity; a cheek
Suffused with something of a feminine hue;
Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard;
But, in the quicker turns of the discourse,
Expression slowly varying, that evinced
A tardy apprehension. From a fount
Lost, thought I, in the obscurities of time,
But honoured once, those features and that mien
May have descended, though I see them here.
In such a man, so gentle and subdued, 790
Withal so graceful in his gentleness,
A race illustrious for heroic deeds,
Humbled, but not degraded, may expire.
This pleasing fancy (cherished and upheld
By sundry recollections of such fall
From high to low, ascent from low to high,
As books record, and even the careless mind
Cannot but notice among men and things)
Went with me to the place of my repose.
Roused by the crowing cock at dawn of day, 800
I yet had risen too late to interchange
A morning salutation with my Host,
Gone forth already to the far-off seat
Of his day's work. 'Three dark mid-winter months
'Pass,' said the Matron 'and I never see,
'Save when the sabbath brings its kind release,
'My Helpmate's face by light of day. He quits
'His door in darkness, nor till dusk returns.
'And, through Heaven's blessing, thus we gain the bread
'For which we pray; and for the wants provide 810
'Of sickness, accident, and helpless age.
'Companions have I many; many friends,
'Dependants, comforters--my wheel, my fire,
'All day the house-clock ticking in mine ear,
'The cackling hen, the tender chicken brood,
'And the wild birds that gather round my porch.
'This honest sheep-dog's countenance I read;
'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 820
'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 830
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;
For you the hours of labour 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, 840
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 850
With empty actions and vain passions stuffed,
And from the private struggles of mankind
Hoping far less than I could wish to hope,
Far less than once I trusted and believed--
I love to hear of those, who, not contending
Nor summoned to contend for virtue's prize,
Miss not the humbler good at which they aim,
Blest with a kindly faculty to blunt
The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn
Into their contraries the petty plagues 860
And hindrances with which they stand beset.
In early youth, among my native hills,
I knew a Scottish Peasant who possessed
A few small crofts of stone-encumbered ground;
Masses of every shape and size, that lay
Scattered about under the mouldering walls
Of a rough precipice; and some, apart,
In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,
As if the moon had showered them down in spite.
But he repined not. Though the plough was scared 870
By these obstructions, 'round the shady stones
'A fertilising moisture,' said the Swain,
'Gathers, and is preserved; and feeding dews
'And damps, through all the droughty summer day
'From out their substance issuing, maintain
'Herbage that never fails; no grass springs up
'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 880
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 grey-haired Orphan--
So call him, for humanity to him
No parent 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. 890
--But your compliance, Sir! with our request
My words too long have hindered."
Undeterred,
Perhaps incited rather, by these shocks,
In no ungracious opposition, given
To the confiding spirit of his own
Experienced faith, the reverend Pastor said,
Around him looking; "Where shall I begin?
Who shall be first selected from my flock
Gathered together in their peaceful fold?"
He paused--and having lifted up his eyes 900
To the pure heaven, he cast them down again
Upon the earth beneath his feet; and spake:--
"To a mysteriously-united pair
This place is consecrate; to Death and Life,
And to the best affections that proceed
From their conjunction; consecrate to faith
In him who bled for man upon the cross;
Hallowed to revelation; and no less
To reason's mandates: and the hopes divine
Of pure imagination;--above all, 910
To charity, and love, that have provided,
Within these precincts, a capacious bed
And receptacle, open to the good
And evil, to the just and the unjust;
In which they find an equal resting-place:
Even as the multitude 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, 920
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,
That all beneath us by the wings are covered
Of 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 930
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 depraved,
To virtue lost, insensible of peace,
From the delights of charity cut off,
To pity dead, the oppressor and the opprest; 940
Tyrants who utter the destroying word,
And slaves who will consent to be destroyed--
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 of the holy rite 950
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 960
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-- 970
Are here deposited, with tribute paid
Various, but unto each some tribute paid;
As if, amid these peaceful hills and groves,
Society were touched with kind concern,
And gentle 'Nature grieved, that one should die;'
Or, if the change demanded no regret,
Observed the liberating stroke--and blessed.
And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?
Not from the naked 'Heart' alone of Man
(Though claiming high distinction upon earth 980
As the sole spring and fountain-head of tears,
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 990
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 1000
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 perverse. 1010
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."
NOTES
646 'Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,
And have the dead around us.'
Leo. You, Sir, could help me to the history
Of half these graves?
Priest. For eight-score winters past,
With what I've witnessed, and with what I've heard
Perhaps I might; . . . . .
By turning o'er these hillocks one by one,
We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;
Yet all in the broad highway of the world.
'See the Brothers'.
975 'And suffering Nature grieved that one should die.'
"Southey's Retrospect."
978 'And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?'
The sentiments and opinions here uttered are in unison with
those expressed in the following Essay upon Epitaphs, which was
furnished by me for Mr. Coleridge's periodical work, "The Friend";
and as they are dictated by a spirit congenial to that which
pervades this and the two succeeding books, the sympathising
reader will not be displeased to see the Essay here annexed.
_____________
ESSAY UPON EPITAPHS
IT needs scarcely be said, that an Epitaph presupposes a Monument,
upon which it is to be engraven. Almost all Nations have wished
that certain external signs should point out the places where
their dead are interred. Among savage tribes unacquainted with
letters this has mostly been done either by rude stones placed
near the graves, or by mounds of earth raised over them. This
custom proceeded obviously from a twofold desire: first to guard
the remains of the deceased from irreverent approach or from
savage violation: and secondly to preserve their memory. "Never
any," says Camden, "neglected burial but some savage nations; as
the Bactrians, which cast their dead to the dogs; some varlet
philosophers, as Diogenes, who desired to be devoured of fishes;
some dissolute courtiers, as Maecenas, who was wont to say, Non
tumulum curo; sepelit natura relictos.
'I'm careless of a grave:--Nature her dead will save.'"
As soon as nations had learned the use of letters, epitaphs were
inscribed upon these monuments; in order that their intention
might be more surely and adequately fulfilled. I have derived
monuments and epitaphs from two sources of feeling, but these do
in fact resolve themselves into one. The invention of epitaphs,
Weever, in his Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly,
"proceeded from the presage or fore-feeling of immortality,
implanted in all men naturally, and is referred to the scholars of
Linus the Theban poet, who flourished about the year of the world
two thousand seven hundred; who first bewailed this Linus their
Master, when he was slain, in doleful verses, then called of him
Oelina, afterwards Epitaphia, for that they were first sung at
burials, after engraved upon the sepulchres."
And, verily, without the consciousness of a principle of
immortality in the human soul, Man could never have had awakened
in him the desire to live in the remembrance of his fellows: mere
love, or the yearning of kind towards kind, could not have
produced it. The dog or horse perishes in the field, or in the
stall, by the side of his companions, and is incapable of
anticipating the sorrow with which his surrounding associates
shall bemoan his death, or pine for his loss; he cannot pre-
conceive this regret, he can form no thought of it; and therefore
cannot possibly have a desire to leave such regret or remembrance
behind him. Add to the principle of love which exists in the
inferior animals, the faculty of reason which exists in Man alone;
will the conjunction of these account for the desire? Doubtless it
is a necessary consequence of this conjunction; yet not, I think,
as a direct result, but only to be come at through an intermediate
thought, viz. that of an intimation or assurance within us, that
some part of our nature is imperishable. At least the precedence,
in order of birth, of one feeling to the other, is unquestionable.
If we look back upon the days of childhood, we shall find that the
time is not in remembrance when, with respect to our own
individual Being, the mind was without this assurance; whereas,
the wish to be remembered by our friends or kindred after death,
or even in absence, is, as we shall discover, a sensation that
does not form itself till the 'social' feelings have been
developed, and the Reason has connected itself with a wide range
of objects. Forlorn, and cut off from communication with the best
part of his nature, must that man be, who should derive the sense
of immortality, as it exists in the mind of a child, from the same
unthinking gaiety or liveliness of animal spirits with which the
lamb in the meadow or any other irrational creature is endowed;
who should ascribe it, in short, to blank ignorance in the child;
to an inability arising from the imperfect state of his faculties
to come, in any point of his being, into contact with a notion of
death; or to an unreflecting acquiescence in what has been
instilled into him! Has such an unfolder of the mysteries of
nature, though he may have forgotten his former self, ever noticed
the early, obstinate, and unappeasable inquisitiveness of children
upon the subject of origination? This single fact proves outwardly
the monstrousness of those suppositions: for, if we had no direct
external testimony that the minds of very young children meditate
feelingly upon death and immortality, these inquiries, which we
all know they are perpetually making concerning the 'whence', do
necessarily include correspondent habits of interrogation
concerning the 'whither'. Origin and tendency are notions
inseparably co-relative. Never did a child stand by the side of a
running stream, pondering within himself what power was the feeder
of the perpetual current, from what never-wearied sources the body
of water was supplied, but he must have been inevitably propelled
to follow this question by another: "Towards what abyss is it in
progress? what receptacle can contain the mighty influx?" And the
spirit of the answer must have been, though the word might be sea
or ocean, accompanied perhaps with an image gathered from a map,
or from the real object in nature--these might have been the
'letter', but the 'spirit' of the answer must have been 'as'
inevitably,--a receptacle without bounds or dimensions;--nothing
less than infinity. We may, then, be justified in asserting, that
the sense of immortality, if not a co-existent and twin birth with
Reason, is among the earliest of her offspring: and we may further
assert, that from these conjoined, and under their countenance,
the human affections are gradually formed and opened out. This is
not the place to enter into the recesses of these investigations;
but the subject requires me here to make a plain avowal, that, for
my own part, it is to me inconceivable, that the sympathies of
love towards each other, which grow with our growth, could ever
attain any new strength, or even preserve the old, after we had
received from the outward senses the impression of death, and were
in the habit of having that impression daily renewed and its
accompanying feeling brought home to ourselves, and to those we
love; if the same were not counteracted by those communications
with our internal Being, which are anterior to all these
experiences, and with which revelation coincides, and has through
that coincidence alone (for otherwise it could not possess it) a
power to affect us. I confess, with me the conviction is absolute
that, if the impression and sense of death were not thus
counterbalanced, such a hollowness would pervade the whole system
of things, such a want of correspondence and consistency, a
disproportion so astounding betwixt means and ends, that there
could be no repose, no joy. Were we to grow up unfostered by this
genial warmth, a frost would chill the spirit, so penetrating and
powerful that there could be no motions of the life of love; and
infinitely less could we have any wish to be remembered after we
had passed away from a world in which each man had moved about
like a shadow.--If, then, in a creature endowed with the faculties
of foresight and reason, the social affections could not have
unfolded themselves uncountenanced by the faith that Man is an
immortal being, and if, consequently, neither could the individual
dying have had a desire to survive in the remembrance of his
fellows, nor on their side could they have felt a wish to preserve
for future times vestiges of the departed; it follows, as a final
inference, that without the belief in immortality, wherein these
several desires originate, neither monuments nor epitaphs, in
affectionate or laudatory commemoration of the deceased, could
have existed in the world.
Simonides, it is related, upon landing in a strange country,
found the corse of an unknown person lying by the seaside; he
buried it, and was honoured throughout Greece for the piety of
that act. Another ancient Philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes
upon a dead body, regarded the same with slight, if not with
contempt, saying, "See the shell of the flown bird!" But it is not
to be supposed that the moral and tender-hearted Simonides was
incapable of the lofty movements of thought to which that other
Sage gave way at the moment while his soul was intent only upon
the indestructible being; nor, on the other hand, that he, in
whose sight a lifeless human body was of no more value than the
worthless shell from which the living fowl had departed, would
not, in a different mood of mind, have been affected by those
earthly considerations which had incited the philosophic Poet to
the performance of that pious duty. And with regard to this latter
we may be assured that, if he had been destitute of the capability
of communing with the more exalted thoughts that appertain to
human nature, he would have cared no more for the corse of the
stranger than for the dead body of a seal or porpoise which might
have been cast up by the waves. We respect the corporeal frame of
Man, not merely because it is the habitation of a rational, but of
an immortal Soul. Each of these Sages was in sympathy with the
best feelings of our nature; feelings which, though they seem
opposite to each other, have another and a finer connection than
that of contrast.--It is a connection formed through the subtle
progress by which, both in the natural and the moral world,
qualities pass insensibly into their contraries, and things
revolve upon each other. As, in sailing upon the orb of this
planet, a voyage towards the regions where the sun sets conducts
gradually to the quarter where we have been accustomed to behold
it come forth at its rising; and, in like manner, a voyage towards
the east, the birth-place in our imagination of the morning, leads
finally to the quarter where the sun is last seen when he departs
from our eyes; so the contemplative Soul, travelling in the
direction of mortality, advances to the country of everlasting
life; and, in like manner, may she continue to explore those
cheerful tracts till she is brought back, for her advantage and
benefit, to the land of transitory things--of sorrow and of tears.
On a midway point, therefore, which commands the thoughts and
feelings of the two Sages whom we have represented in contrast,
does the Author of that species of composition, the laws of which
it is our present purpose to explain, take his stand. Accordingly,
recurring to the twofold desire of guarding the remains of the
deceased and preserving their memory, it may be said that a
sepulchral monument is a tribute to a man as a human being; and
that an epitaph (in the ordinary meaning attached to the word)
includes this general feeling and something more; and is a record
to preserve the memory of the dead, as a tribute due to his
individual worth, for a satisfaction to the sorrowing hearts of
the survivors, and for the common benefit of the living: which
record is to be accomplished, not in a general manner, but, where
it can, in 'close connection with the bodily remains of the
deceased': and these, it may be added, among the modern nations of
Europe, are deposited within, or contiguous to, their places of
worship. In ancient times, as is well known, it was the custom to
bury the dead beyond the walls of towns and cities; and among the
Greeks and Romans they were frequently interred by the waysides.
I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the Reader to
indulge with me in contemplation of the advantages which must have
attended such a practice. We might ruminate upon the beauty which
the monuments, thus placed, must have borrowed from the
surrounding images of nature--from the trees, the wild flowers,
from a stream running perhaps within sight or hearing, from the
beaten road stretching its weary length hard by. Many tender
similitudes must these objects have presented to the mind of the
traveller leaning upon one of the tombs, or reposing in the
coolness of its shade, whether he had halted from weariness or in
compliance with the invitation, "Pause, Traveller!" so often found
upon the monuments. And to its epitaph also must have been
supplied strong appeals to visible appearances or immediate
impressions, lively and affecting analogies of life as a journey--
death as a sleep overcoming the tired wayfarer--of misfortune as a
storm that falls suddenly upon him--of beauty as a flower that
passeth away, or of innocent pleasure as one that may be gathered-
-of virtue that standeth firm as a rock against the beating waves-
-of hope "undermined insensibly like the poplar by the side of the
river that has fed it," or blasted in a moment like a pine-tree by
the stroke of lightning upon the mountain-top--of admonitions and
heart-stirring remembrances, like a refreshing breeze that comes
without warning, or the taste of the waters of an unexpected
fountain. These and similar suggestions must have given, formerly,
to the language of the senseless stone a voice enforced and
endeared by the benignity of that nature with which it was in
unison.--We, in modern times, have lost much of these advantages;
and they are but in a small degree counterbalanced to the
inhabitants of large towns and cities by the custom of depositing
the dead within, or contiguous to, their places of worship;
however splendid or imposing may be the appearance of those
edifices, or however interesting or salutary the recollections
associated with them. Even were it not true that tombs lose their
monitory virtue when thus obtruded upon the notice of men occupied
with the cares of the world, and too often sullied and defiled by
those cares, yet still, when death is in our thoughts, nothing can
make amends for the want of the soothing influences of nature, and
for the absence of those types of renovation and decay which the
fields and woods offer to the notice of the serious and
contemplative mind. To feel the force of this sentiment, let a man
only compare in imagination the unsightly manner in which our
monuments are crowded together in the busy, noisy, unclean, and
almost grassless churchyard of a large town, with the still
seclusion of a Turkish cemetery, in some remote place, and yet
further sanctified by the grove of cypress in which it is
embosomed. Thoughts in the same temper as these have already been
expressed with true sensibility by an ingenuous Poet of the
present day. The subject of his poem is "All Saints Church,
Derby:" he has been deploring the forbidding and unseemly
appearance of its burial-ground, and uttering a wish that in past
times the practice had been adopted of interring the inhabitants
of large towns in the country;--
Then in some rural, calm, sequestered spot
Where healing Nature her benignant look
Ne'er changes, save at that lorn season, when,
With tresses drooping o'er her sable stole,
She yearly mourns the mortal doom of man,
Her noblest work, (so Israel's virgins erst,
With annual moan upon the mountains wept
Their fairest gone,) there in that rural scene,
So placid, so congenial to the wish
The Christian feels, of peaceful rest within
The silent grave, I would have stayed:
* * * * *
--wandered forth, where the cold dew of heaven
Lay on the humbler graves around, what time
The pale moon gazed upon the turfy mounds,
Pensive, as though like me, in lonely muse,
'Twere brooding on the dead inhumed beneath.
There while with him, the holy man of Uz,
O'er human destiny I sympathised,
Counting the long, long periods prophecy
Decrees to roll, ere the great day arrives
Of resurrection, oft the blue-eyed Spring
Had met me with her blossoms, as the Dove,
Of old, returned with olive leaf, to cheer
The Patriarch mourning o'er a world destroyed:
And I would bless her visit; for to me
'Tis sweet to trace the consonance that links
As one, the works of Nature and the word
Of God.-- JOHN EDWARDS.
A village churchyard, lying as it does in the lap of nature, may
indeed be most favourably contrasted with that of a town of
crowded population; and sepulture therein combines many of the
best tendencies which belong to the mode practised by the Ancients
with others peculiar to itself. The sensations of pious
cheerfulness, which attend the celebration of the sabbath-day in
rural places, are profitably chastised by the sight of the graves
of kindred and friends, gathered together in that general home
towards which the thoughtful yet happy spectators themselves are
journeying. Hence a parish church, in the stillness of the
country, is a visible centre of a community of the living and the
dead; a point to which are habitually referred the nearest
concerns of both.
As, then, both in cities and in villages, the dead are deposited
in close connection with our places of worship, with us the
composition of an epitaph naturally turns, still more than among
the nations of antiquity, upon the most serious and solemn
affections of the human mind; upon departed worth--upon personal
or social sorrow and admiration--upon religion, individual and
social--upon time, and upon eternity. Accordingly, it suffices, in
ordinary cases, to secure a composition of this kind from censure,
that it contain nothing that shall shock or be inconsistent with
this spirit. But, to entitle an epitaph to praise, more than this
is necessary. It ought to contain some thought or feeling
belonging to the mortal or immortal part of our nature touchingly
expressed; and if that be done, however general or even trite the
sentiment may be, every man of pure mind will read the words with
pleasure and gratitude. A husband bewails a wife; a parent
breathes a sigh of disappointed hope over a lost child; a son
utters a sentiment of filial reverence for a departed father or
mother; a friend perhaps inscribes an encomium recording the
companionable qualities, or the solid virtues, of the tenant of
the grave, whose departure has left a sadness upon his memory.
This and a pious admonition to the living, and a humble expression
of Christian confidence in immortality, is the language of a
thousand churchyards; and it does not often happen that anything,
in a greater degree discriminate or appropriate to the dead or to
the living, is to be found in them. This want of discrimination
has been ascribed by Dr. Johnson, in his Essay upon the epitaphs
of Pope, to two causes: first, the scantiness of the objects of
human praise; and, secondly, the want of variety in the characters
of men; or, to use his own words, "to the fact, that the greater
part of mankind have no character at all." Such language may be
holden without blame among the generalities of common
conversation; but does not become a critic and a moralist speaking
seriously upon a serious subject. The objects of admiration in
human nature are not scanty, but abundant: and every man has a
character of his own to the eye that has skill to perceive it. The
real cause of the acknowledged want of discrimination in
sepulchral memorials is this: That to analyse the characters of
others, especially of those whom we love, is not a common or
natural employment of men at any time. We are not anxious
unerringly to understand the constitution of the minds of those
who have soothed, who have cheered, who have supported us; with
whom we have been long and daily pleased or delighted. The
affections are their own justification. The light of love in our
hearts is a satisfactory evidence that there is a body of worth in
the minds of our friends or kindred, whence that light has
proceeded. We shrink from the thought of placing their merits and
defects to be weighed against each other in the nice balance of
pure intellect; nor do we find much temptation to detect the
shades by which a good quality or virtue is discriminated in them
from an excellence known by the same general name as it exists in
the mind of another; and least of all do we incline to these
refinements when under the pressure of sorrow, admiration, or
regret, or when actuated by any of those feelings which incite men
to prolong the memory of their friends and kindred by records
placed in the bosom of the all-uniting and equalising receptacle
of the dead.
The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it should
speak, in a tone which shall sink into the heart, the general
language of humanity as connected with the subject of death--the
source from which an epitaph proceeds--of death, and of life. To
be born and to die are the two points in which all men feel
themselves to be in absolute coincidence. This general language
may be uttered so strikingly as to entitle an epitaph to high
praise; yet it cannot lay claim to the highest unless other
excellences be superadded. Passing through all intermediate steps,
we will attempt to determine at once what these excellences are,
and wherein consists the perfection of this species of
composition.--It will be found to lie in a due proportion of the
common or universal feeling of humanity to sensations excited by a
distinct and clear conception, conveyed to the reader's mind, of
the individual whose death is deplored and whose memory is to be
preserved; at least of his character as, after death, it appeared
to those who loved him and lament his loss. The general sympathy
ought to be quickened, provoked, and diversified, by particular
thoughts, actions, images,--circumstances of age, occupation,
manner of life, prosperity which the deceased had known, or
adversity to which he had been subject; and these ought to be
bound together and solemnised into one harmony by the general
sympathy. The two powers should temper, restrain, and exalt each
other. The reader ought to know who and what the man was whom he
is called upon to think of with interest. A distinct conception
should be given (implicitly where it can, rather than explicitly)
of the individual lamented.--But the writer of an epitaph is not
an anatomist, who dissects the internal frame of the mind; he is
not even a painter, who executes a portrait at leisure and in
entire tranquillity: his delineation, we must remember, is
performed by the side of the grave; and, what is more, the grave
of one whom he loves and admires. What purity and brightness is
that virtue clothed in, the image of which must no longer bless
our living eyes! The character of a deceased friend or beloved
kinsman is not seen--no, nor ought to be seen--otherwise than as a
tree through a tender haze or a luminous mist, that spiritualises
and beautifies it; that takes away, indeed, but only to the end
that the parts which are not abstracted may appear more dignified
and lovely; may impress and affect the more. Shall we say, then,
that this is not truth, not a faithful image; and that,
accordingly, the purposes of commemoration cannot be answered?--It
'is' truth, and of the highest order; for, though doubtless things
are not apparent which did exist; yet, the object being looked at
through this medium, parts and proportions are brought into
distinct view which before had been only imperfectly or
unconsciously seen: it is truth hallowed by love--the joint
offspring of the worth of the dead and the affections of the
living! This may easily be brought to the test. Let one, whose
eyes have been sharpened by personal hostility to discover what
was amiss in the character of a good man, hear the tidings of his
death, and what a change is wrought in a moment! Enmity melts
away; and, as it disappears, unsightliness, disproportion, and
deformity, vanish; and, through the influence of commiseration, a
harmony of love and beauty succeeds. Bring such a man to the
tombstone on which shall be inscribed an epitaph on his adversary,
composed in the spirit which we have recommended. Would he turn
from it as from an idle tale? No;--the thoughtful look, the sigh,
and perhaps the involuntary tear, would testify that it had a
sane, a generous, and good meaning; and that on the writer's mind
had remained an impression which was a true abstract of the
character of the deceased; that his gifts and graces were
remembered in the simplicity in which they ought to be remembered.
The composition and quality of the mind of a virtuous man,
contemplated by the side of the grave where his body is
mouldering, ought to appear, and be felt as something midway
between what he was on earth walking about with his living
frailties, and what he may be presumed to be as a Spirit in
heaven.
It suffices, therefore, that the trunk and the main branches of
the worth of the deceased be boldly and unaffectedly represented.
Any further detail, minutely and scrupulously pursued, especially
if this be done with laborious and antithetic discriminations,
must inevitably frustrate its own purpose; forcing the passing
Spectator to this conclusion,--either that the dead did not
possess the merits ascribed to him, or that they who have raised a
monument to his memory, and must therefore be supposed to have
been closely connected with him, were incapable of perceiving
those merits; or at least during the act of composition had lost
sight of them; for, the understanding having been so busy in its
petty occupation, how could the heart of the mourner be other than
cold? and in either of these cases, whether the fault be on the
part of the buried person or the survivors, the memorial is
unaffecting and profitless.
Much better is it to fall short in discrimination than to pursue
it too far, or to labour it unfeelingly. For in no place are we so
much disposed to dwell upon those points of nature and condition
wherein all men resemble each other, as in the temple where the
universal Father is worshipped, or by the side of the grave which
gathers all human Beings to itself, and "equalises the lofty and
the low." We suffer and we weep with the same heart; we love and
are anxious for one another in one spirit; our hopes look to the
same quarter; and the virtues by which we are all to be furthered
and supported, as patience, meekness, good-will, justice,
temperance, and temperate desires, are in an equal degree the
concern of us all. Let an Epitaph, then, contain at least these
acknowledgments to our common nature; nor let the sense of their
importance be sacrificed to a balance of opposite qualities or
minute distinctions in individual character; which if they do not
(as will for the most part be the case), when examined, resolve
themselves into a trick of words, will, even when they are true
and just, for the most part be grievously out of place; for, as it
is probable that few only have explored these intricacies of human
nature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a few.
But an epitaph is not a proud writing shut up for the studious: it
is exposed to all--to the wise and the most ignorant; it is
condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its
story and admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy,
and indolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired: the
stooping old man cons the engraven record like a second horn-
book;--the child is proud that he can read it;--and the stranger
is introduced through its mediation to the company of a friend: it
is concerning all, and for all:--in the churchyard it is open to
the day; the sun looks down upon the stone, and the rains of
heaven beat against it.
Yet, though the writer who would excite sympathy is bound in
this case, more than in any other, to give proof that he himself
has been moved, it is to be remembered that to raise a monument is
a sober and a reflective act; that the inscription which it bears
is intended to be permanent, and for universal perusal; and that,
for this reason, the thoughts and feelings expressed should be
permanent also--liberated from that weakness and anguish of sorrow
which is in nature transitory, and which with instinctive decency
retires from notice. The passions should be subdued, the emotions
controlled; strong, indeed, but nothing ungovernable or wholly
involuntary. Seemliness requires this, and truth requires it also:
for how can the narrator otherwise be trusted? Moreover, a grave
is a tranquillising object: resignation in course of time springs
up from it as naturally as the wild flowers, besprinkling the turf
with which it may be covered, or gathering round the monument by
which it is defended. The very form and substance of the monument
which has received the inscription, and the appearance of the
letters, testifying with what a slow and laborious hand they must
have been engraven, might seem to reproach the author who had
given way upon this occasion to transports of mind, or to quick
turns of conflicting passion; though the same might constitute the
life and beauty of a funeral oration or elegiac poem.
These sensations and judgments, acted upon perhaps
unconsciously, have been one of the main causes why epitaphs so
often personate the deceased, and represent him as speaking from
his own tomb-stone. The departed Mortal is introduced telling you
himself that his pains are gone; that a state of rest is come; and
he conjures you to weep for him no longer. He admonishes with the
voice of one experienced in the vanity of those affections which
are confined to earthly objects, and gives a verdict like a
superior Being, performing the office of a judge, who has no
temptations to mislead him, and whose decision cannot but be
dispassionate. Thus is death disarmed of its sting, and affliction
unsubstantialised. By this tender fiction, the survivors bind
themselves to a sedater sorrow, and employ the intervention of the
imagination in order that the reason may speak her own language
earlier than she would otherwise have been enabled to do. This
shadowy interposition also harmoniously unites the two worlds of
the living and the dead by their appropriate affections. And it
may be observed that here we have an additional proof of the
propriety with which sepulchral inscriptions were referred to the
consciousness of immortality as their primal source.
I do not speak with a wish to recommend that an epitaph should
be cast in this mould preferably to the still more common one, in
which what is said comes from the survivors directly; but rather
to point out how natural those feelings are which have induced
men, in all states and ranks of society, so frequently to adopt
this mode. And this I have done chiefly in order that the laws
which ought to govern the composition of the other may be better
understood. This latter mode, namely, that in which the survivors
speak in their own persons, seems to me upon the whole greatly
preferable, as it admits a wider range of notices; and, above all,
because, excluding the fiction which is the groundwork of the
other, it rests upon a more solid basis.
Enough has been said to convey our notion of a perfect epitaph;
but it must be borne in mind that one is meant which will best
answer the 'general' ends of that species of composition.
According to the course pointed out, the worth of private life,
through all varieties of situation and character, will be most
honourably and profitably preserved in memory. Nor would the model
recommended less suit public men in all instances, save of those
persons who by the greatness of their services in the employments
of peace or war, or by the surpassing excellence of their works in
art, literature, or science, have made themselves not only
universally known, but have filled the heart of their country with
everlasting gratitude. Yet I must here pause to correct myself. In
describing the general tenor of thought which epitaphs ought to
hold, I have omitted to say, that if it be the 'actions' of a man,
or even some 'one' conspicuous or beneficial act of local or
general utility, which have distinguished him, and excited a
desire that he should be remembered, then, of course, ought the
attention to be directed chiefly to those actions or that act: and
such sentiments dwelt upon as naturally arise out of them or it.
Having made this necessary distinction, I proceed.--The mighty
benefactors of mankind, as they are not only known by the
immediate survivors, but will continue to be known familiarly to
latest posterity, do not stand in need of biographic sketches in
such a place; nor of delineations of character to individualise
them. This is already done by their Works, in the memories of men.
Their naked names, and a grand comprehensive sentiment of civic
gratitude, patriotic love, or human admiration--or the utterance
of some elementary principle most essential in the constitution of
true virtue--or a declaration touching that pious humility and
self-abasement, which are ever most profound as minds are most
susceptible of genuine exaltation--or an intuition, communicated
in adequate words, of the sublimity of intellectual power;--these
are the only tribute which can here be paid--the only offering
that upon such an altar would not be unworthy.
"What needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones
The labour of an age in piled stones,
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a livelong monument,
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die."
Wordsworth, William. 1888. Complete Poetical Works.