Note 27 — 1835
Reading edition
1837.
From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart This tribute flow’d, with hope that it might guard The dust of him whose virtues call’d it forth; But ’tis a little space of earth that man, Stretch’d out in death, is doom’d to occupy; Still smaller space doth modest custom yield, On sculptured tomb or tablet, to the claims Of the deceased, or rights of the bereft. ’Tis well; and tho’, the record overstepped Those narrow bounds, yet on the printed page Received, there may it stand, I trust, unblamed As long as verse of mine shall steal from tears Their bitterness, or live to shed a gleam Of solace over one dejected thought. In privately printed edition.
Professor Dowden quotes, from “a slip of MS. in the poet’s hand-writing,” the following variation of these lines—
’Tis well, and if the Record in the strength And earnestness of feeling, overpass’d Those narrow limits and so miss’d its aim, Yet will I trust that on the printed page Received, it there may keep a place unblamed.
Ed.