A POET'S EPITAPH. Art thou a Statesman, in the van A Lawyer art thou ?-draw not nigh; Go, carry to some other place eye, The hardness of thy coward The falsehood of thy sallow face. Art thou a Man of purple cheer? A rosy Man, right plump to see? Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near: This grave no cushion is for thee. Art thou a man of gallant pride, Physician art thou? One, all eyes, Wrappt closely in thy sensual fleece Thy pin-point of a soul away! -A Moralist perchance appears; Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod: And He has neither eyes nor ears; Himself his world, and his own God; One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling Nor form, nor feeling, great nor small; A reasoning, self-sufficient thing, An intellectual All in All! Shut close the door; press down the latch; Sleep in thy intellectual crust; Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch Near this unprofitable dust. But who is He, with modest looks, And clad in homely russet brown? He is retired as noontide dew, you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love. The outward shows of sky and earth, Of hill and valley, he has viewed ; And impulses of deeper birth Have come to him in solitude. In common things that round us lie That broods and sleeps on his own heart. But he is weak, both Man and Boy, Hath been an idler in the land; Contented if he might enjoy The things which others understand. -Come hither in thy hour of strength; Come, weak as is a breaking wave! Here stretch thy body at full length; Or build thy house upon this grave. A FRAGMENT. Between two sister moorland rills There is a spot that seems to lie And in this smooth and open dell A thing no storm can e'er destroy, In clouds above, the Lark is heard, He sings his blithest and his best ; 淹 VOL. II. |