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Old Man! whom so oft I with pity have eyed,
I love thee, and love the sweet Boy at thy side :
Long yet may'st thou live! for a teacher we see
That lifts up the veil of our nature in thee.

1800.

VI.

THE MATRON OF JEDBOROUGH AND HER
HUSBAND.*

At Jedborough, my companion and I went into private lodgings for a few days; and the following Verses were called forth by the character and domestic situation of our Hostess.

AGE! twine thy brows with fresh spring flowers,
And call a train of laughing Hours;

And bid them dance, and bid them sing;
And thou, too, mingle in the ring!
Take to thy heart a new delight;
If not, make merry in despite

That there is One who scorns thy power :-
But dance for under Jedborough Tower,
A Matron dwells † who, though she bears
The weight of more than seventy years,
Lives in the light of youthful glee,
And she will dance and sing with thee.

Nay! start not at that Figure-there!
Him who is rooted to his chair!

* Written after a tour in Scotland with his sister, 1803. There liveth in the prime of glee

A woman, whose years are seventy-three,

And she will dance and sing with thee.-Edit. 1815.

THE MATRON OF JEDBOROUGH AND HER HUSBAND. 411

Look at him-look again! for he
Hath long been of thy family.
With legs that move not, if they can,
And useless arms, a trunk of man,
He sits, and with a vacant eye;
A sight to make a stranger sigh !
Deaf, drooping, that is now his doom:
His world is in this single room :
Is this a place for mirthful cheer?
Can merry-making enter here?

The joyous Woman is the Mate
Of him in that forlorn estate !
He breathes a subterraneous damp;
But bright as Vesper shines her lamp:
He is as mute as Jedborough Tower:
She jocund as it was of yore,

With all its bravery on; in times
When all alive with merry chimes,
Upon a sun-bright morn of May,
It roused the Vale to holiday.

I praise thee, Matron! and thy due
Is praise, heroic praise, and true!
With admiration I behold

Thy gladness unsubdued and bold:
Thy looks, thy gestures, all present
The picture of a life well spent:
This do I see; and something more;
A strength unthought of heretofore!
Delighted am I for thy sake;
And yet a higher joy partake:

Our Human-nature throws away
Its second twilight, and looks gay;
A land of promise and of pride
Unfolding, wide as life is wide.

Ah! see her helpless Charge! enclosed
Within himself as seems, composed;
To fear of loss, and hope of gain,
The strife of happiness and pain,
Utterly dead! yet in the guise
Of little infants, when their eyes
Begin to follow to and fro

The persons that before them go,
He tracks her motions, quick or slow.
Her buoyant spirit can prevail

Where common cheerfulness would fail
She strikes upon him with the heat
Of July suns; he feels it sweet;
An animal delight though dim!

'Tis all that now remains for him!

;

The more I looked, I wondered more—* And, while I scanned them o'er and o'er, Some inward trouble suddenly

Broke from the Matron's strong black eyeA remnant of uneasy light,

A flash of something over-bright!

Nor long this mystery did detain

My thoughts;-she told in pensive strain +

* I looked, I scanned her o'er and o'er,
The more I looked, I wondered more,

When suddenly I seemed to espy

A trouble in her strong black eye.-Edit. 1815.

And soon she made this matter plain,

And told me in a thoughtful strain.-Edit. 1815.

That she had borne a heavy yoke,
Been stricken by a twofold stroke ;
Ill health of body; and had pined
Beneath worse ailments of the mind.

So be it!—but let praise ascend
To Him who is our lord and friend!
Who from disease and suffering

Hath called for thee a second spring ;
Repaid thee for that sore distress
By no untimely joyousness;

Which makes of thine a blissful state;
And cheers thy melancholy Mate!

VII.

-'gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.'

THOUGH narrow be that old Man's cares, and near,
The poor old Man is greater than he seems:
For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams;
An ample sovereignty of eye and ear.
Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer;
The region of his inner spirit teems
With vital sounds and monitory gleams
Of high astonishment and pleasing fear.
He the seven birds hath seen, that never part,
Seen the SEVEN WHISTLERS in their nightly rounds,
And counted them: and oftentimes will start-
For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS
Doomed, with their impious Lord, the flying Hart
To chase for ever, on aërial grounds!

VIII.

INSCRIPTION

FOR THE SPOT WHERE THE HERMITAGE STOOD ON ST. HERBERT'S ISLAND, DERWENT-WATER.

*

IF thou in the dear love of some one Friend

Hast been so happy that thou know'st what thoughts

Will sometimes in the happiness of love

Make the heart sink, then wilt thou reverence
This quiet spot; and, Stranger! not unmoved
Wilt thou behold this shapeless heap of stones,

The desolate ruins of St. Herbert's Cell.

Here stood his threshold; here was spread the roof That sheltered him, a self-secluded Man,

After long exercise in social cares

And offices humane, intent to adore

The Deity, with undistracted mind,

And meditate on everlasting things,

* The first fourteen lines are different in the Edition of 1815. They run thus

This island guarded from profane approach

By mountains high, and waters widely spread,

Is that recess to which St. Herbert came

In life's decline;-a self-secluded man,

After long exercise in social cares
And offices humane, intent to adore

The Deity, with undistracted mind,

And meditate on everlasting things.

-Stranger! this shapeless heap of stones and Earth,
(Long be its mossy covering undisturbed !)

Is reverenced as a vestige of the abode

In which, through many seasons, from the world
Removed, and the affections of the world,
He dwelt in solitude.

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