WHEN first, descending from the moorlands, | |
| I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide | |
| Along a bare and open valley, | |
| The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide. | |
| |
| When last along its banks I wandered, | 5 |
| Through groves that had begun to shed | |
| Their golden leaves upon the pathways, | |
| My steps the Border-minstrel led. | |
| |
| The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer, | |
| ’Mid mouldering ruins low he lies; | 10 |
| And death upon the braes of Yarrow, | |
| Has closed the Shepherd-poet’s eyes: | |
| |
| Nor has the rolling year twice measured, | |
| From sign to sign, its steadfast course, | |
| Since every mortal power of Coleridge | 15 |
| Was frozen at its marvellous source; | |
| |
| The rapt One, of the godlike forehead, | |
| The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth: | |
| And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle, | |
| Has vanished from his lonely hearth. | 20 |
| |
| Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits, | |
| Or waves that own no curbing hand, | |
| How fast has brother followed brother | |
| From sunshine to the sunless land! | |
| |
| Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber | 25 |
| Were earlier raised, remain to hear | |
| A timid voice, that asks in whispers, | |
| “Who next will drop and disappear?” | |
| |
| Our haughty life is crowned with darkness, | |
| Like London with its own black wreath, | 30 |
| On which with thee, O Crabbe! forthlooking, | |
| I gazed from Hampstead’s breezy heath. | |
| |
| As if but yesterday departed, | |
| Thou too art gone before; but why, | |
| O’er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered, | 35 |
| Should frail survivors heave a sigh? | |
| |
| Mourn rather for that holy Spirit, | |
| Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep; | |
| For Her who, ere her summer faded, | |
| Had sunk into a breathless sleep. | 40 |
| |
| No more of old romantic sorrows, | |
| For slaughtered Youth or love-born Maid! | |
| With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten, | |
| And Ettrick mourns with her their Poet dead. | |
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