That house, where Age led in by Filial Love,
Their looks composed, their thoughts on things above,
The world forgot, or all its wrongs forgiven

Who would not say they trod the path to Heaven?

Nor at the fragrant hour at early dawn— Under the elm-tree on his level lawn,

Or in his porch, is he less duly found,

When they that cry for justice gather round,
And in that cry her sacred voice is drowned;
His then to hear, and weigh and arbitrate,
Like ALFRED judging at his palace-gate.
Healed at his touch, the wounds of discord close;
And they return as friends, that came as foes.
Thus, while the world but claims its proper part,
Oft in the head but never in the heart,

His life steals on; within his quiet dwelling
That home-felt joy all other joys excelling.
Sick of the crowd, when enters he

Forgets the cold indifference of men?

nor then

Soon through the gadding vine the sun looks in,34 And gentle hands the breakfast-rite begin.

Then the bright kettle sings its matin-song,

Then fragrant clouds of Mocha and Souchong

Blend as they rise; and (while without are seen,
Sure of their meal, the small birds on the green;
And in from far a school-boy's letter flies,
Flushing the sister's cheek with glad surprise)
That sheet unfolds (who reads, and reads it not?)
Born with the day and with the day forgot;
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.

"T was 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 beechwood-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)

35

36

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 through that gate misnamed,38 through which before
Went Sidney, Russell, Raleigh, Cranmer, More,
On into twilight within walls of stone,

39

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 sate by RUSSELL'S side
Under the judgment-seat.11

But guilty men

Triumph not always. To his hearth again,

Again with honor to his hearth restored,

Lo! in the accustomed chair and at the board,

Thrice greeting those who most withdraw their claim 42 (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!

43

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 -
Take it and leave me." And the blushing maid,
Who through the streets as through 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, O, how changed at once- no heroine here,
But a weak woman worn with grief and fear,
Her darling mother! 'T was 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! 45

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
'Tis present to the last!

In pomp or ease.

Years glide away untold — 't is 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 't was thine
Ne'er to forget some volume half divine,

Shakspeare's or Dryden's-through the checkered 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 fervor 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.

"T is 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.

46

And such, his labor done, the calm he knows,40 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;

47

Or prunes or grafts, or in the yellow mead
Watches his bees at hiving-time; 7 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,
A tale is told of India or Japan,
Of merchants from Golconde or Astracan,
What time wild nature revelled unrestrained,
And Sinbad voyaged and the Caliphs reigned:
Of knights renowned from holy Palestine,
And minstrels, such as swept the lyre divine,
When Blondel came, and Richard in his cell 48
Heard, as he lay, the song he knew so well :
Of some Norwegian, while the icy gale
Rings in her shrouds and beats her iron-sail,
Among the shining Alps of polar seas
Immovable

forever there to freeze! 49

Or some great caravan, from well to well

Winding as darkness on the desert fell,

In their long march, such as the Prophet bids,
To Mecca from the land of Pyramids,

And in an instant lost a hollow wave
Of burning sand their everlasting grave!
Now the scene shifts to Cashmere — to a glade

Where, with her loved gazelle, the dark-eyed maid