APPENDIX A.
Reading edition
‘And think and fear.’—Page 11.
The entire Poem as given in the works of the Poet stands thus:—
TO THE SONS OF BURNS, after visiting the grave of their father.
‘The Poet’s grave is in a corner of the churchyard. We looked at it with melancholy and painful reflections, repeating to each other his own verses—
“Is there a man whose judgment clear,” etc.’
Extract from the Journal of my Fellow-Traveller.
’Mid crowded obelisks and urns I sought the untimely grave of Burns; Sons of the Bard, my heart still mourns With sorrow true; And more would grieve, but that it turns Trembling to you!
Through twilight shades of good and ill Ye now are panting up life’s hill, And more than common strength and skill Must ye display; If ye would give the better will Its lawful sway.
Hath Nature strung your nerves to bear Intemperance with less harm, beware! But if the Poet’s wit ye share, Like him can speed The social hour—of tenfold care There will be need;
For honest men delight will take To spare your failings for his sake, Will flatter you,—and fool and rake Your steps pursue; And of your Father’s name will make A snare for you.
Far from their noisy haunts retire, And add your voices to the quire That sanctify the cottage fire With service meet; There seek the genius of your Sire, His spirit greet;
Or where, ’mid ‘lonely heights and hows,’ He paid to Nature tuneful vows; Or wiped his honourable brows Bedewed with toil, While reapers strove, or busy ploughs Upturned the soil;
His judgment with benignant ray Shall guide, his fancy cheer, your way; But ne’er to a seductive lay Let faith be given; Nor deem that ‘light which leads astray, Is light from Heaven.’
Let no mean hope your souls enslave; Be independent, generous, brave; Your Father such example gave, And such revere; But be admonished by his grave, And think, and fear!
Two other Poems on the same subject may fitly be inserted in this place, though, as appears from the Poet’s notes, one of them at least belongs to a later date.
AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS. 1803. seven years after his death.
I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold, At thoughts of what I now behold: As vapours breathed from dungeons cold Strike pleasure dead, So sadness comes from out the mould Where Burns is laid.
And have I then thy bones so near, And thou forbidden to appear? As if it were thyself that’s here, I shrink with pain; And both my wishes and my fear Alike are vain.
Off weight—nor press on weight!—away Dark thoughts!—they came, but not to stay; With chastened feelings would I pay The tribute due To him, and aught that hides his clay From mortal view.
Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth He sang, his genius ‘glinted’ forth, Rose like a star that touching earth, For so it seems, Doth glorify its humble birth With matchless beams.
The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow, The struggling heart, where be they now?— Full soon the Aspirant of the plough, The prompt, the brave, Slept, with the obscurest, in the low And silent grave.
I mourned with thousands, but as one More deeply grieved, for He was gone Whose light I hailed when first it shone, And showed my youth How Verse may build a princely throne On humble truth.
Alas! where’er the current tends, Regret pursues and with it blends,— Huge Criffel’s hoary top ascends By Skiddaw seen, Neighbours we were, and loving friends We might have been;
True friends though diversely inclined; But heart with heart and mind with mind, Where the main fibres are entwined, Through Nature’s skill, May even by contraries be joined More closely still.
The tear will start, and let it flow; Thou ‘poor Inhabitant below,’ At this dread moment—even so— Might we together Have sate and talked where gowans blow, Or on wild heather.
What treasures would have then been placed Within my reach; of knowledge graced By fancy what a rich repast! But why go on?— Oh! spare to sweep, thou mournful blast, His grave grass-grown.
There, too, a Son, his joy and pride, (Not three weeks past the Stripling died,) Lies gathered to his Father’s side, Soul-moving sight! Yet one to which is not denied Some sad delight.
For he is safe, a quiet bed Hath early found among the dead, Harboured where none can be misled, Wronged, or distrest; And surely here it may be said That such are blest.
And oh for Thee, by pitying grace Checked oft-times in a devious race. May He who halloweth the place Where Man is laid, Receive thy Spirit in the embrace For which it prayed!
Sighing I turned away; but ere Night fell I heard, or seemed to hear, Music that sorrow comes not near, A ritual hymn, Chanted in love that casts out fear By Seraphim.
From the notes appended to the latest editions of Wordsworth’s works, it appears that the preceding poem, ‘though felt at the time, was not composed till many years afterwards.’
THOUGHTS suggested the day following, on the banks of nith, near the poet’s residence.
Too frail to keep the lofty vow That must have followed when his brow Was wreathed—‘The Vision’ tells us how— With holly spray, He faultered, drifted to and fro, And passed away.
Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng Our minds when, lingering all too long, Over the grave of Burns we hung In social grief— Indulged as if it were a wrong To seek relief.
But, leaving each unquiet theme Where gentlest judgments may misdeem, And prompt to welcome every gleam Of good and fair, Let us beside this limpid Stream Breathe hopeful air.
Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight; Think rather of those moments bright When to the consciousness of right His course was true, When Wisdom prospered in his sight, And Virtue grew.
Yes, freely let our hearts expand, Freely as in youth’s season bland, When side by side, his Book in hand, We wont to stray, Our pleasure varying at command Of each sweet Lay.
How oft inspired must he have trod These pathways, yon far-stretching road! There lurks his home; in that Abode, With mirth elate, Or in his nobly-pensive mood, The Rustic sate.
Proud thoughts that Image overawes, Before it humbly let us pause, And ask of Nature, from what cause, And by what rules She trained her Burns to win applause That shames the Schools.
Through busiest street and loneliest glen Are felt the flashes of his pen; He rules ’mid winter snows, and when Bees fill their hives; Deep in the general heart of men His power survives.
What need of fields in some far clime Where Heroes, Sages, Bards sublime, And all that fetched the flowing rhyme From genuine springs, Shall dwell together till old Time Folds up his wings?
Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven This Minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; The rueful conflict, the heart riven With vain endeavour, And memory of Earth’s bitter leaven, Effaced for ever.
But why to Him confine the prayer, When kindred thoughts and yearnings bear On the frail heart the purest share With all that live?— The best of what we do and are, Just God, forgive!