| |
| SOME years ago, ere time and taste | |
| Had turn’d our parish topsy-turvy, | |
| When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste, | |
| And roads as little known as scurvy, | |
| The man who lost his way between | 5 |
| St. Mary’s Hill and Sandy Thicket | |
| Was always shown across the green, | |
| And guided to the parson’s wicket. | |
| |
| Back flew the bolt of lissom lath; | |
| Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle, | 10 |
| Led the lorn traveller up the path | |
| Through clean-clipp’d rows of box and myrtle; | |
| And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, | |
| Upon the parlor steps collected, | |
| Wagg’d all their tails, and seem’d to say, | 15 |
| “Our master knows you; you ’re expected.” | |
| |
| Up rose the reverend Doctor Brown, | |
| Up rose the doctor’s “winsome marrow;” | |
| The lady laid her knitting down, | |
| Her husband clasp’d his ponderous Barrow. | 20 |
| Whate’er the stranger’s caste or creed, | |
| Pundit or papist, saint or sinner, | |
| He found a stable for his steed, | |
| And welcome for himself, and dinner. | |
| |
| If, when he reach’d his journey’s end, | 25 |
| And warm’d himself in court or college, | |
| He had not gain’d an honest friend, | |
| And twenty curious scraps of knowledge; | |
| If he departed as he came, | |
| With no new light on love or liquor,— | 30 |
| Good sooth, the traveller was to blame, | |
| And not the vicarage, nor the vicar. | |
| |
| His talk was like a stream which runs | |
| With rapid change from rocks to roses; | |
| It slipp’d from politics to puns; | 35 |
| It pass’d from Mahomet to Moses; | |
| Beginning with the laws which keep | |
| The planets in their radiant courses, | |
| And ending with some precept deep | |
| For dressing eels or shoeing horses. | 40 |
| |
| He was a shrewd and sound divine, | |
| Of loud dissent the mortal terror; | |
| And when, by dint of page and line, | |
| He ’stablish’d truth or startled error, | |
| The Baptist found him far too deep, | 45 |
| The Deist sigh’d with saving sorrow, | |
| And the lean Levite went to sleep | |
| And dream’d of tasting pork to-morrow. | |
| |
| His sermon never said or show’d | |
| That earth is foul, that heaven is gracious, | 50 |
| Without refreshment on the road | |
| From Jerome, or from Athanasius; | |
| And sure a righteous zeal inspir’d | |
| The hand and head that penn’d and plann’d them, | |
| For all who understood admir’d, | 55 |
| And some who did not understand them. | |
| |
| He wrote too, in a quiet way, | |
| Small treatises, and smaller verses, | |
| And sage remarks on chalk and clay, | |
| And hints to noble lords and nurses; | 60 |
| True histories of last year’s ghost; | |
| Lines to a ringlet or a turban; | |
| And trifles to the Morning Post, | |
| And nothings for Sylvanus Urban. | |
| |
| He did not think all mischief fair, | 65 |
| Although he had a knack of joking; | |
| He did not make himself a bear, | |
| Although he had a taste for smoking; | |
| And when religious sects ran mad, | |
| He held, in spite of all his learning, | 70 |
| That if a man’s belief is bad, | |
| It will not be improv’d by burning. | |
| |
| And he was king, and lov’d to sit | |
| In the low hut or garnish’d cottage, | |
| And praise the farmer’s homely wit, | 75 |
| And share the widow’s homelier pottage. | |
| At his approach complaint grew mild, | |
| And when his hand unbarr’d the shutter | |
| The clammy lips of fever smil’d | |
| The welcome which they could not utter. | 80 |
| |
| He always had a tale for me | |
| Of Julius Cæsar or of Venus; | |
| From him I learn’d the rule of three, | |
| Cat’s-cradle, leap-frog, and Quæ genus. | |
| I used to singe his powder’d wig, | 85 |
| To steal the staff he put such trust in, | |
| And make the puppy dance a jig | |
| When he began to quote Augustine. | |
| |
| Alack, the change! In vain I look | |
| For haunts in which my boyhood trifled; | 90 |
| The level lawn, the trickling brook, | |
| The trees I climb’d, the beds I rifled. | |
| The church is larger than before, | |
| You reach it by a carriage entry: | |
| It holds three hundred people more, | 95 |
| And pews are fitted for the gentry. | |
| |
| Sit in the vicar’s seat: you ’ll hear | |
| The doctrine of a gentle Johnian, | |
| Whose hand is white, whose voice is clear, | |
| Whose tone is very Ciceronian. | 100 |
| Where is the old man laid? Look down, | |
| And construe on the slab before you: | |
| “Hic jacet Gulielmus Brown, | |
| Vir nullâ non donandus lauro.” | |
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