In the woods,

A lone Enthusiast, and among the fields,

Itinerant in this labour, he had passed

The better portion of his time; and there

Spontaneously had his affections thriven

Amid the bounties of the year, the peace

And liberty of nature; there he kept

In solitude and solitary thought

His mind in a just equipoise of love.

Serene it was, unclouded by the cares

Of ordinary life; unvexed, unwarped

By partial bondage. In his steady course,

No piteous revolutions had he felt,

No wild varieties of joy and grief.

Unoccupied by sorrow of its own,

His heart lay open; and, by nature tuned

And constant disposition of his thoughts

To sympathy with man, he was alive

To all that was enjoyed where'er he went,

And all that was endured; for, in himself

Happy, and quiet in his cheerfulness,

He had no painful pressure from without

That made him turn aside from wretchedness

With coward fears. He could afford to suffer

With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came

That in our best experience he was rich,

And in the wisdom of our daily life.

For hence, minutely, in his various rounds,

He had observed the progress and decay

Of many minds, of minds and bodies too;

The history of many families;

How they had prospered; how they were o'erthrown

By passion or mischance, or such misrule

Among the unthinking masters of the earth

As makes the nations groan.

This active course

He followed till provision for his wants

Had been obtained; – the Wanderer then resolved

To pass the remnant of his days, untasked

With needless services, from hardship free.

His calling laid aside, he lived at ease:

But still he loved to pace the public roads

And the wild paths; and, by the summer's warmth

Invited, often would he leave his home

And journey far, revisiting the scenes

That to his memory were most endeared.

– Vigorous in health, of hopeful spirits, undamped

By worldly-mindedness or anxious care;

Observant, studious, thoughtful, and refreshed

By knowledge gathered up from day to day;

Thus had he lived a long and innocent life.

 

The Scottish Church, both on himself and those

With whom from childhood he grew up, had held

The strong hand of her purity; and still

Had watched him with an unrelenting eye.

This he remembered in his riper age

With gratitude, and reverential thoughts.

But by the native vigour of his mind,

By his habitual wanderings out of doors,

By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works,

Whate'er, in docile childhood or in youth,

He had imbibed of fear or darker thought

Was melted all away; so true was this,

That sometimes his religion seemed to me

Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods;

Who to the model of his own pure heart

Shaped his belief, as grace divine inspired,

And human reason dictated with awe.

– And surely never did there live on earth

A man of kindlier nature. The rough sports

And teasing ways of children vexed not him;

Indulgent listener was he to the tongue

Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man's tale,

To his fraternal sympathy addressed,

Obtain reluctant hearing.

Plain his garb;

Such as might suit a rustic Sire, prepared

Par sabbath duties; yet he was a man

Whom no one could have passed without remark.

Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs

And his whole figure breathed intelligence.

Time had compressed the freshness of his cheek

Into a narrower circle of deep red,

But had not tamed his eye; that, under brows

Shaggy and grey, had meanings which it brought

From years of youth; which, like a Being made

Of many Beings, he had wondrous skill

To blend with knowledge of the years to come,

Human, or such as lie beyond the grave.

 

So was He framed; and such his course of life

Who now, with no appendage but a staff,

The prized memorial of relinquished toils,

Upon that cottage-bench reposed his limbs,

Screened from the sun. Supine the Wanderer lay,

His eyes as if in drowsiness half shut,

The shadows of the breezy elms above

Dappling his face. He had not heard the sound

Of my approaching steps, and in the shade

Unnoticed did I stand some minutes' space.

At length I hailed him, seeing that his hat

Was moist with water-drops, as if the brim

Had newly scooped a running stream. He rose,

And ere our lively greeting into peace

Had settled, »'Tis,« said I, a »a burning day:

My lips are parched with thirst, but you, it seems,

Have somewhere found relief.« He, at the word,

Pointing towards a sweet-briar, bade me climb

The fence where that aspiring shrub looked out

Upon the public way. It was a plot

Of garden ground run wild, its matted weeds

Marked with the steps of those, whom, as they passed,

The gooseberry trees that shot in long lank slips,

Or currants, hanging from their leafless stems,

In scanty strings, had tempted to o'erleap

The broken wall. I looked around, and there,

Where two tall hedge-rows of thick alder boughs

Joined in a cold damp nook, espied a well

Shrouded with willow-flowers and plumy fern.

My thirst I slaked, and, from the cheerless spot

Withdrawing, straightway to the shade returned

Where sate the old Man on the cottage-bench;

And, while, beside him, with uncovered head,

I yet was standing, freely to respire,

And cool my temples in the fanning air,

Thus did he speak. »I see around me here

Things which you cannot see: we die, my Friend,

Nor we alone, but that which each man loved

And prized in his peculiar nook of earth

Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon

Even of the good is no memorial left.

– The Poets, in their elegies and songs

Lamenting the departed, call the groves,

They call upon the hills and streams to mourn,

And senseless rocks; nor idly; for they speak,

In these their invocations, with a voice

Obedient to the strong creative power

Of human passion. Sympathies there are

More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth,

That steal upon the meditative mind,

And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood,

And eyed its waters till we seemed to feel

One sadness, they and I. For them a bond

Of brotherhood is broken: time has been

When, every day, the touch of human hand

Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up

In mortal stillness; and they ministered

To human comfort. Stooping down to drink,

Upon the slimy foot-stone I espied

The useless fragment of a wooden bowl,

Green with the moss of years, and subject only

To the soft handling of the elements:

There let it lie – how foolish are such thoughts!

Forgive them; – never – never did my steps

Approach this door but she who dwelt within

A daughter's welcome gave me, and I loved her

As my own child. Oh, Sir! the good die first,

And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust

Burn to the socket. Many a passenger

Hath blessed poor Margaret for her gentle looks,

When she upheld the cool refreshment drawn

From that forsaken spring; and no one came

But he was welcome; no one went away

But that it seemed she loved him. She is dead,

The light extinguished of her lonely hut,

The hut itself abandoned to decay,

And she forgotten in the quiet grave.

 

I speak,« continued he, »of One whose stock

Of virtues bloomed beneath this lowly roof.

She was a Woman of a steady mind,

Tender and deep in her excess of love;

Not speaking much, pleased rather with the joy

Of her own thoughts: by some especial care

Her temper had been framed, as if to make

A Being, who by adding love to peace

Might live on earth a life of happiness.

Her wedded Partner lacked not on his side

The humble worth that satisfied her heart:

Frugal, affectionate, sober, and withal

Keenly industrious. She with pride would tell

That he was often seated at his loom,

In summer, ere the mower was abroad

Among the dewy grass, – in early spring,

Ere the last star had vanished. – They who passed

At evening, from behind the garden fence

Might hear his busy spade, which he would ply,

After his daily work, until the light

Had failed, and every leaf and flower were lost

In the dark hedges. So their days were spent

In peace and comfort; and a pretty boy

Was their best hope, next to the God in heaven.

 

Not twenty years ago, but you I think

Can scarcely bear it now in mind, there came

Two blighting seasons, when the fields were left

With half a harvest. It pleased Heaven to add

A worse affliction in the plague of war:

This happy Land was stricken to the heart!

A Wanderer then among the cottages,

I, with my freight of winter raiment, saw

The hardships of that season: many rich

Sank down, as in a dream, among the poor;

And of the poor did many cease to be,

And their place knew them not. Meanwhile, abridged

Of daily comforts, gladly reconciled

To numerous self-denials, Margaret

Went struggling on through those calamitous years

With cheerful hope, until the second autumn,

When her life's Helpmate on a sick-bed lay,

Smitten with perilous fever. In disease

He lingered long; and, when his strength returned,

He found the little he had stored, to meet

The hour of accident or crippling age,

Was all consumed. A second infant now

Was added to the troubles of a time

Laden, for them and all of their degree,

With care and sorrow: shoals of artisans

From ill-requited labour turned adrift

Sought daily bread from public charity,

They, and their wives and children – happier far

Could they have lived as do the little birds

That peck along the hedge-rows, or the kite

That makes her dwelling on the mountain rocks!

 

A sad reverse it was for him who long

Had filled with plenty, and possessed in peace,

This lonely Cottage. At the door he stood,

And whistled many a snatch of merry tunes

That had no mirth in them; or with his knife

Carved uncouth figures on the heads of sticks –

Then, not less idly, sought, through every nook

In house or garden, any casual work

Of use or ornament; and with a strange,

To whom this cottage, till those hapless years,

Had been a blesséd home, it was my chance

To travel in a country far remote;

And when these lofty elms once more appeared

What pleasant expectations lured me on

O'er the flat Common! – With quick step I reached

The threshold, lifted with light hand the latch;

But, when I entered, Margaret looked at me

A little while; then turned her head away

Speechless, – and, sitting down upon a chair,

Wept bitterly. I wist not what to do,

Nor how to speak to her. Poor Wretch! at last

She rose from off her seat, and then, – O Sir!

I cannot tell how she pronounced my name: –

With fervent love, and with a face of grief

Unutterably helpless, and a look

That seemed to cling upon me, she enquired

If I had seen her husband.