WRITTEN AFTER THE DEATH OF CHARLES LAMB
TO a good Man of most dear memory This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart From the great city where he first drew breath, Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his bread, To the strict labours of the merchant’s desk By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress, His spirit, but the recompence was high; Firm Independence, Bounty’s rightful sire; Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air; 10 And when the precious hours of leisure came, Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets With a keen eye, and overflowing heart: So genius triumphed over seeming wrong, And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love Inspired–works potent over smiles and tears. And as round mountain-tops the lightning plays, Thus innocently sported, breaking forth As from a cloud of some grave sympathy, 20 Humour and wild instinctive wit, and all The vivid flashes of his spoken words. From the most gentle creature nursed in fields Had been derived the name he bore–a name, Wherever Christian altars have been raised, Hallowed to meekness and to innocence; And if in him meekness at times gave way, Provoked out of herself by troubles strange, Many and strange, that hung about his life; Still, at the centre of his being, lodged 30 A soul by resignation sanctified: And if too often, self-reproached, he felt That innocence belongs not to our kind, A power that never ceased to abide in him, Charity, ‘mid the multitude of sins That she can cover, left not his exposed To an unforgiving judgment from just Heaven. Oh, he was good, if e’er a good Man lived! assetList.txt btb buildsite.sh gzipAll.sh tempdir temp.log testlist2.txt assetList.txt btb buildsite.sh gzipAll.sh tempdir temp.log testlist2.txt assetList.txt btb buildsite.sh gzipAll.sh tempdir temp.log testlist2.txt assetList.txt btb buildsite.sh gzipAll.sh tempdir temp.log testlist2.txt assetList.txt btb buildsite.sh gzipAll.sh tempdir temp.log testlist2.txt assetList.txt btb buildsite.sh gzipAll.sh tempdir temp.log testlist2.txt assetList.txt btb buildsite.sh gzipAll.sh tempdir temp.log testlist2.txt From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart Those simple lines flowed with an earnest wish, 40 Though but a doubting hope, that they might serve Fitly to guard the precious dust of him Whose virtues called them forth. That aim is missed; For much that truth most urgently required Had from a faltering pen been asked in vain: Yet, haply, on the printed page received, The imperfect record, there, may stand unblamed As long as verse of mine shall breathe the air Of memory, or see the light of love. Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend, 50 But more in show than truth; and from the fields, And from the mountains, to thy rural grave Transported, my soothed spirit hovers o’er Its green untrodden turf, and blowing flowers; And taking up a voice shall speak (tho’ still Awed by the theme’s peculiar sanctity Which words less free presumed not even to touch) Of that fraternal love, whose heaven-lit lamp From infancy, through manhood, to the last Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour, 60 Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, enshrined Within thy bosom. “Wonderful” hath been The love established between man and man, “Passing the love of women;” and between Man and his help-mate in fast wedlock joined Through God, is raised a spirit and soul of love Without whose blissful influence Paradise Had been no Paradise; and earth were now A waste where creatures bearing human form, Direst of savage beasts, would roam in fear, 70 Joyless and comfortless. Our days glide on; And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve That he hath been an Elm without his Vine, And her bright dower of clustering charities, That, round his trunk and branches, might have clung Enriching and adorning. Unto thee, Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee Was given (say rather, thou of later birth Wert given to her) a Sister–’tis a word Timidly uttered, for she ‘lives’, the meek, 80 The self-restraining, and the ever-kind; In whom thy reason and intelligent heart Found–for all interests, hopes, and tender cares, All softening, humanising, hallowing powers, Whether withheld, or for her sake unsought– More than sufficient recompence! Her love (What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here?) Was as the love of mothers; and when years, Lifting the boy to man’s estate, had called The long-protected to assume the part 90 Of a protector, the first filial tie Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight, Remained imperishably interwoven With life itself. Thus, ‘mid a shifting world, Did they together testify of time And season’s difference–a double tree With two collateral stems sprung from one root; Such were they–such thro’ life they ‘might’ have been In union, in partition only such; Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High; 100 Yet thro’ all visitations and all trials, Still they were faithful; like two vessels launched From the same beach one ocean to explore With mutual help, and sailing–to their league True, as inexorable winds, or bars Floating or fixed of polar ice, allow. But turn we rather, let my spirit turn With thine, O silent and invisible Friend! To those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief, When reunited, and by choice withdrawn 110 From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught That the remembrance of foregone distress, And the worse fear of future ill (which oft Doth hang around it, as a sickly child Upon its mother) may be both alike Disarmed of power to unsettle present good So prized, and things inward and outward held In such an even balance, that the heart Acknowledges God’s grace, his mercy feels, And in its depth of gratitude is still. 120 O gift divine of quiet sequestration! The hermit, exercised in prayer and praise, And feeding daily on the hope of heaven, Is happy in his vow, and fondly cleaves To life-long singleness; but happier far Was to your souls, and, to the thoughts of others, A thousand times more beautiful appeared, Your ‘dual’ loneliness. The sacred tie Is broken; yet why grieve? for Time but holds His moiety in trust, till Joy shall lead 130 To the blest world where parting is unknown. 1835.