Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
Winthrop Mackworth Praed 180239The Vicar
Praed-WiS
Had turn’d our parish topsy-turvy,
When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste,
And roads as little known as scurvy,
The man who lost his way between
St. Mary’s Hill and Sandy Thicket
Was always shown across the green,
And guided to the parson’s wicket.
Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle,
Led the lorn traveller up the path
Through clean-clipp’d rows of box and myrtle;
And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray,
Upon the parlor steps collected,
Wagg’d all their tails, and seem’d to say,
“Our master knows you; you ’re expected.”
Up rose the doctor’s “winsome marrow;”
The lady laid her knitting down,
Her husband clasp’d his ponderous Barrow.
Whate’er the stranger’s caste or creed,
Pundit or papist, saint or sinner,
He found a stable for his steed,
And welcome for himself, and dinner.
And warm’d himself in court or college,
He had not gain’d an honest friend,
And twenty curious scraps of knowledge;
If he departed as he came,
With no new light on love or liquor,—
Good sooth, the traveller was to blame,
And not the vicarage, nor the vicar.
With rapid change from rocks to roses;
It slipp’d from politics to puns;
It pass’d from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels or shoeing horses.
Of loud dissent the mortal terror;
And when, by dint of page and line,
He ’stablish’d truth or startled error,
The Baptist found him far too deep,
The Deist sigh’d with saving sorrow,
And the lean Levite went to sleep
And dream’d of tasting pork to-morrow.
That earth is foul, that heaven is gracious,
Without refreshment on the road
From Jerome, or from Athanasius;
And sure a righteous zeal inspir’d
The hand and head that penn’d and plann’d them,
For all who understood admir’d,
And some who did not understand them.
Small treatises, and smaller verses,
And sage remarks on chalk and clay,
And hints to noble lords and nurses;
True histories of last year’s ghost;
Lines to a ringlet or a turban;
And trifles to the Morning Post,
And nothings for Sylvanus Urban.
Although he had a knack of joking;
He did not make himself a bear,
Although he had a taste for smoking;
And when religious sects ran mad,
He held, in spite of all his learning,
That if a man’s belief is bad,
It will not be improv’d by burning.
In the low hut or garnish’d cottage,
And praise the farmer’s homely wit,
And share the widow’s homelier pottage.
At his approach complaint grew mild,
And when his hand unbarr’d the shutter
The clammy lips of fever smil’d
The welcome which they could not utter.
Of Julius Cæsar or of Venus;
From him I learn’d the rule of three,
Cat’s-cradle, leap-frog, and Quæ genus.
I used to singe his powder’d wig,
To steal the staff he put such trust in,
And make the puppy dance a jig
When he began to quote Augustine.
For haunts in which my boyhood trifled;
The level lawn, the trickling brook,
The trees I climb’d, the beds I rifled.
The church is larger than before,
You reach it by a carriage entry:
It holds three hundred people more,
And pews are fitted for the gentry.
The doctrine of a gentle Johnian,
Whose hand is white, whose voice is clear,
Whose tone is very Ciceronian.
Where is the old man laid? Look down,
And construe on the slab before you:
“Hic jacet Gulielmus Brown,
Vir nullâ non donandus lauro.”