NAY, traveller! rest. This lonely yew-tree stands | |
| Far from all human dwelling: what if here | |
| No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb? | |
| What if the bee love not these barren boughs? | |
| Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves, | 5 |
| That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind | |
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.
Who he was | |
| That piled these stones and with the mossy sod | |
| First covered o’er, and taught this aged tree | |
| With its dark arms to form a circling bower, | 10 |
| I well remember. He was one who owned | |
| No common soul. In youth by science nursed, | |
| And led by nature into a wild scene | |
| Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth | |
| A favored being, knowing no desire | 15 |
| Which genius did not hallow; ’gainst the taint | |
| Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate, | |
| And scorn,—against all enemies prepared, | |
| All but neglect. The world, for so it thought, | |
| Owed him no service; wherefore he at once | 20 |
| With indignation turned himself away, | |
| And with the food of pride sustained his soul | |
| In solitude. Stranger! these gloomy boughs | |
| Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit, | |
| His only visitants a straggling sheep, | 25 |
| The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper; | |
| And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath | |
| And juniper and thistle sprinkled o’er, | |
| Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour | |
| A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here | 30 |
| An emblem of his own unfruitful life; | |
| And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze | |
| On the more distant scene,—how lovely ’t is | |
| Thou seest!—and he would gaze till it became | |
| Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain | 35 |
| The beauty, still more beauteous! Nor, that time | |
| When Nature had subdued him to herself, | |
| Would he forget those beings to whose minds, | |
| Warm from the labors of benevolence, | |
| The world and human life appeared a scene | 40 |
| Of kindred loveliness; then he would sigh, | |
| With mournful joy, to think that others felt | |
| What he must never feel; and so, lost man! | |
| On visionary views would fancy feed, | |
| Till his eye streamed with tears. In this deep vale | 45 |
| He died,—this seat his only monument. | |
| |
| If thou be one whose heart the holy forms | |
| Of young imagination have kept pure, | |
| Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride, | |
| Howe’er disguised in its own majesty, | 50 |
| Is littleness, that he who feels contempt | |
| For any living thing hath faculties | |
| Which he has never used, that thought with him | |
| Is in its infancy. The man whose eye | |
| Is ever on himself doth look on one | 55 |
| The least of nature’s works,—one who might move | |
| The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds | |
| Unlawful, ever. O, be wiser, thou! | |
| Instructed that true knowledge leads to love; | |
| True dignity abides with him alone | 60 |
| Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, | |
| Can still suspect, and still revere himself, | |
| In lowliness of heart. | |
| |
