| |
| 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-clipt rows of box and myrtle; | |
| And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, | |
| Upon the parlour steps collected, | |
| Wagg’d all their tails, and seem’d to say— | 15 |
| ‘Our master knows you—you’re expected.’ | |
| |
| Uprose the Reverend Dr. Brown, | |
| Uprose 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 gained 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 spring, which runs | |
| With rapid change from rocks to roses: | |
| It slipped from politics to puns, | 35 |
| It passed 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 sermons 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 inspired | |
| The hand and head that penn’d and plann’d them, | |
| For all who understood admired, | 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 for 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 improved by burning. | |
| |
| And he was kind, and loved 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 smiled | |
| The welcome which they could not utter. | 80 |
| |
| He always had a tale for me | |
| Of Julius Caesar, or of Venus; | |
| From him I learnt the rule of three, | |
| Cat’s cradle, leap-frog, and Quae 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 up for gentry. | |
| |
| Sit in the Vicar’s seat: you’ll hear | |
| The doctrine of a gentle Johnian, | |
| Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear, | |
| Whose phrase is very Ciceronian. | 100 |
| Where is the old man laid?—look down, | |
| And construe on the slab before you, | |
| ‘Hic jacet GVLIELMVS BROWN, | |
| Vir nullâ non donandus lauru.’ | |
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