The voice of social transport reach'd even him!
He broke from his contracted bounds, repair'd
To the great city, an emporium then
Of golden expectations, and receiving
Freights, every day, from a new world of hope.
Thither his popular talents he transferr'd!
And, from the pulpit, zealously maintain'd
The cause of Christ and civil liberty,
As one, and moving to one glorious end.
Intoxicating service! I might say
A happy service; for he was sincere
As vanity and fondness for applause,
And new and shapeless wishes, would allow.
"That righteous cause of freedom did, we know, Combine for one hostility, as friends,
Ethereal natures and the worst of slaves;
Was served by rival advocates that came
From regions opposite as heaven and hell.
One courage seem'd to animate them all:
And, from the dazzling conquests daily gain'd
By their united efforts, there arose
A proud and most presumptuous confidence
In the transcendent wisdom of the age,
And its discernment; not alone in rights,
And in the origin and bounds of power
Social and temporal; but in laws divine,
Deduced by reason, or to faith reveal'd.
An overweening trust was raised; and fear
Cast out, alike of person and of thing.
Plague from this union spread, whose subtle bane
The strongest did not easily escape;
And he, what wonder? took a mortal taint.
How shall I trace the change, how bear to tell
That he broke faith with them whom he had laid
In earth's dark chambers with a Christian's hope!
An infidel contempt of holy writ
Stole by degrees upon his mind; and hence
Life, like that Roman Janus, double-faced;
Vilest hypocrisy, the laughing, gay
Hypocrisy, not leagued with fear, but pride.
Smooth words he had to wheedle simple souls;
But, for disciples of the inner school,
Old freedom was old servitude, and they
The wisest whose opinions stoop'd the least
To known restraints, and who most boldly drew
Hopeful prognostications from a creed,
Which, in the light of false philosophy,
Spread like a halo round a misty moon,
Widening its circle as the storms advance.
"His sacred function was at length renounced
And every day and every place enjoy'd
The unshackled layman's natural liberty;
Speech, manners, morals, all without disguise.
I do not wish to wrong him; though the course
Of private life licentiously display'd
Unhallow'd actions-planted like a crown
Upon the insolent aspiring brow
Of spurious notions-worn as open signs
Of prejudice subdued-he still retain'd,
'Mid much abasement, what he had received
From nature-an intense and glowing mind.
Wherefore, when humbled Liberty grew weak,
And mortal sickness on her face appear'd,
He colour'd objects to his own desire
As with a lover's passion. Yet his moods
Of pain were keen as those of better men,
Nay keener, as his fortitude was less :
And he continued, when worse days were come,
To deal about his sparkling eloquence,
Struggling against the strange reverse with zeal
That show'd like happiness; but, in despite
Of all this outside bravery, within
He neither felt encouragement nor hope:
For moral dignity, and strength of mind,
Were wanting, and simplicity of life,
And reverence for himself; and, last and best,
Confiding thoughts, through love and fear of Him,
Before whose sight the troubles of this world
Are vain as billows in a tossing sea.
"The glory of the times fading away-
The splendour, which had given a festal air
To self-importance, hallow'd it, and veil'd
From his own sight, this gone, therewith he lost
All joy in human nature; was consumed,
And vex'd, and chafed, by levity and scorn,
And fruitless indignation; gall'd by pride;
Made desperate by contempt of men who throve
Before his sight in power or fame, and won,
Without desert, what he desired; weak men,
Too weak even for his envy or his hate!
And thus beset, and finding in himself
Nor pleasure nor tranquillity, at last,
After a wandering course of discontent
In foreign lands, and inwardly oppress'd
With malady-in part, I fear, provoked
By weariness of life-he fix'd his home,
Or, rather say, sate down by very chance,
Among these rugged hills; where now he dwells,
And wastes the sad remainder of his hours
In self-indulging spleen, that doth not want
Its own voluptuousness-on this resolved,
With this content-that he will live and die
Forgotten,-at safe distance from a world
Not moving to his mind.'
Closed the preparatory notices
With which my fellow-traveller had beguiled
The way, while we advanced up that wide vale.
Now, suddenly diverging, he began
To climb, upon its western side, a ridge,
Pathless and smooth, a long and steep ascent;
As if the object of his quest had been
Some secret of the mountains, cavern, fall
Of water, or some boastful eminence
Renown'd for splendid prospect far and wide.
We clomb without a track to guide our steps,
And, on the summit, reach'd a healthy plain,
With a tumultuous waste of huge hill-tops
Before us; savage region! and I walk'd
In weariness; when, all at once, behold!
Beneath our feet, a little lowly vale,
A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high
Among the mountains; even as if the spot
Had been, from eldest time, by wish of theirs
So placed, to be shut out from all the world!
Urn-like it was in shape, deep as an urn;
With rocks encompass'd, save that to the south
Was one small opening, where a heath-clad ridge
Supplied a boundary less abrupt and close.
A quiet treeless nook, with two green fields,
A liquid pool, that glitter'd in the sun,
And one bare dwelling; one abode, no more!
It seem'd the home of poverty and toil,
Though not of want: the little fields, made green
By husbandry of many thrifty years,
Paid cheerful tribute to the moorland house.
There crows the cock, single in his domain :
The small birds find in spring no thicket there
To shroud them; only from the neighbouring vales
The cuckoo, straggling up to the hill-tops,
Shouteth faint tidings of some gladder place.
"Ah! what a sweet recess," thought I, "is here!"
Instantly throwing down my limbs at ease
Upon a bed of heath-"full many a spot
Of hidden beauty have I chanced t' espy
Among the mountains; never one like this;
So lonesome, and so perfectly secure :
Not melancholy-no, for it is green,
And bright, and fertile, furnish'd in itself
With the few needful things that life requires.
In rugged arms how soft it seems to lie,
How tenderly protected! Far and near
We have an image of the pristine earth,
The planet in its nakedness; were this
Man's only dwelling, sole appointed seat,
First, last, and single, in the breathing world,
It could not be more quiet: peace is here
Or nowhere; days unruffled by the gale
Of public news or private; years that pass
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