Its ample page various as human life,

The pomp, the woe, the bustle, and the strife! But nothing lasts. In Autumn at his plough Met and solicited, behold him now

Leaving that humbler sphere his fathers knew, The sphere that Wisdom loves, and Virtue too; They who subsist not on the vain applause Misjudging man now gives and now withdraws.

'Twas morn-the sky-lark o'er the furrow sung As from his lips the slow consent was wrung; As from the glebe his fathers tilled of old, The plough they guided in an age of gold, Down by the beech-wood side he turned away :And now behold him in an evil day

Serving the State again-not as before,

Not foot to foot, the war-whoop at his door,
But in the Senate; and (though round him fly
The jest, the sneer, the subtle sophistry,)
With honest dignity, with manly sense,

And every charm of natural eloquence,
Like HAMPDEN struggling in his Country's cause,
The first, the foremost to obey the laws,
The last to brook oppression. On he moves,

Careless of blame while his own heart approves,

Careless of ruin-(" For the general good
'Tis not the first time I shall shed my blood.")
On thro' that gate misnamed, thro' which before
Went Sidney, Russell, Raleigh, Cranmer, More,
On into twilight within walls of stone,
Then to the place of trial; and alone,
Alone before his judges in array

Stands for his life: there, on that awful day,
Counsel of friends-all human help denied―
All but from her who sits the pen to guide,
Like that sweet Saint who sat by RUSSELL'S side
Under the Judgment-scat.

But guilty men

Triumph not always. To his hearth again,

Again with honour to his hearth restored,

Lo, in the accustomed chair and at the board,

Thrice greeting those who most withdraw their claim,

(The lowliest servant calling by his name)

He reads thanksgiving in the eyes of all,

All met as at a holy festival!

-On the day destined for his funeral!

Lo, there the Friend, who, entering where he lay,

Breathed in his drowsy ear" Away, away

!

"Take thou my cloak-Nay, start not, but obey

66

Take it and leave me." And the blushing Maid, Who thro' the streets as thro' a desert strayed;

And, when her dear, dear Father passed along,

Would not be held but bursting through the throng,

Halberd and battle-axe-kissed him o'er and o'er ;
Then turned and went-then sought him as before,
Believing she should see his face no more!

And oh, how changed at once-no heroine here,
But a weak woman worn with grief and fear,
Her darling Mother! 'Twas but now she smiled ;
And now she weeps upon her weeping child!
-But who sits by, her only wish below
At length fulfilled-and now prepared to go?
His hands on hers-as through the mists of night,
She gazes on him with imperfect sight;

Her glory now, as ever her delight!

To her, methinks, a second Youth is given ;
The light upon her face a light from heaven!

An hour like this is worth a thousand passed In pomp or ease-'Tis present to the last! Years glide away untold-Tis still the same! As fresh, as fair as on the day it came!

And now once more where most he loved to be,
In his own fields-breathing tranquillity-

We hail him not less happy, Fox, than thee!
Thee at St. Anne's so soon of Care beguiled,
Playful, sincere, and artless as a child!

Thee, who wouldst watch a bird's nest on the spray,
Through the green leaves exploring, day by day.
How oft from grove to grove, from seat to seat,
With thee conversing in thy loved retreat,

I saw the sun go down!-Ah, then 'twas thine
Ne'er to forget some volume half divine,

Shakspeare's or Dryden's-thro' the chequered shade
Borne in thy hand behind thee as we strayed;

And where we sate (and many a halt we made)
To read there with a fervour all thy own,

And in thy grand and melancholy tone,

Some splendid passage not to thee unknown,

Fit theme for long discourse-Thy bell has tolled! -But in thy place among us we behold

One who resembles thee.

'Tis the sixth hour.

The village-clock strikes from the distant tower.

The ploughman leaves the field; the traveller hears,

And to the inn spurs forward. Nature wears

Her sweetest smile; the day-star in the west
Yet hovering, and the thistle's down at rest.

*

And such, his labour done, the calm He knows,* Whose footsteps we have followed. Round him glows An atmosphere that brightens to the last;

The light, that shines, reflected from the Past,
-And from the Future too! Active in Thought
Among old books, old friends; and not unsought
By the wise stranger-in his morning-hours,
When gentle airs stir the fresh-blowing flowers,
He muses, turning up the idle weed;
Or prunes or grafts, or in the yellow mead
Watches his bees at hiving-time ;† and now,
The ladder resting on the orchard-bough,
Culls the delicious fruit that hangs in air,
The purple plum, green fig, or golden pear,
'Mid sparkling eyes, and hands uplifted there;
At night, when all, assembling round the fire,
Closer and closer draw till they retire,

At illa quanti sunt, animum tanquam emeritis stipendiis libidinis, ambitionis, contentionis, inimicitiarum, cupiditatum omnium, secum esse, secumque (ut dicitur) vivere ?-Cic. De Senectute.

+ Hinc ubi jam emissum caveis ad sidera cœli
Nare per æstatem liquidam suspexeris agmen,
Contemplator.-VIRG.