Haworth Churchyard

Where, under Loughrigg, the stream     Of Rotha sparkles, the fields     Are green, in the house of one     Friendly and gentle, now dead,     Wordsworths son-in-law, friend,     Four years since, on a markd     Evening, a meeting I saw.     Two friends met there, two famd     Gifted women. The one,     Brilliant with recent renown,     Young, unpractisd, had told     With a Masters accent her feignd     Story of passionate life:     The other, maturer in fame,     Earning, she too, her praise     First in Fiction, had since     Widend her sweep, and surveyd     History, Politics, Mind.     They met, held converse: they wrote     In a book which of glorious souls     Held memorial: Bard,     Warrior, Statesman, had left     Their names:, chief treasure of all,     Scott had consignd there his last     Breathings of song, with a pen     Tottering, a death-stricken hand.     I beheld; the obscure     Saw the famous. Alas!     Years in number, it seemd,     Lay before both, and a fame     Heightend, and multiplied power.     Behold! The elder, to-day,     Lies expecting from Death,     In mortal weakness, a last     Summons: the younger is dead.     First to the living we pay     Mournful homage: the Muse     Gains not an earth-deafend ear.     Hail to the steadfast soul,     Which, unflinching and keen,     Wrought to erase from its depth     Mist, and illusion, and fear!     Hail to the spirit which dard     Trust its own thoughts, before yet     Echoed her back by the crowd!     Hail to the courage which gave     Voice to its creed, ere the creed     Won consecration from Time!     Turn, O Death, on the vile,     Turn on the foolish the stroke     Hanging now oer a head     Active, beneficent, pure!     But, if the prayer be in vain,     But, if the stroke must fall,     Her, whom we cannot save,     What might we say to console?     She will not see her country lose     Its greatness, nor the reign of fools prolongd.     She will behold no more     This ignominious spectacle,     Power dropping from the hand     Of paralytic factions, and no soul     To snatch and wield it: will not see     Her fellow people sit     Helplessly gazing on their own decline.     Myrtle and rose fit the young,     Laurel and oak the mature.     Private affections, for these,     Have run their circle, and left     Space for things far from themselves,     Thoughts of the general weal,     Country, and public cares:     Public cares, which move     Seldom and faintly the depth     Of younger passionate souls     Plungd in themselves, who demand     Only to live by the heart,     Only to love and be lovd.     How shall we honour the young,     The ardent, the gifted? how mourn     Console we cannot; her ear     Is deaf. Far northward from here,     In a churchyard high mid the moors     Of Yorkshire, a little earth     Stops it for ever to praise.     Where, behind Keighley, the road     Up to the heart of the moors     Between heath-clad showery hills     Runs, and colliers carts     Poach the deep ways coming down,     And a rough, grimd race have their homes,     There, on its slope, is built     The moorland town. But the church     Stands on the crest of the hill,     Lonely and bleak; at its side     The parsonage-house and the graves.     See! in the desolate house     The childless father! Alas,     Age, whom the most of us chide,     Chide, and put back, and delay,     Come, unupbraided for once     Lay thy benumbing hand,     Gratefully cold, on this brow!     Shut out the grief, the despair!     Weaken the sense of his loss!     Deaden the infinite pain!     Another grief I see,     Younger: but this the Muse,     In pity and silent awe     Revering what she cannot soothe,     With veild face and bowd head,     Salutes, and passes by.     Strew with roses the grave     Of the early-dying. Alas!     Early she goes on the path     To the Silent Country, and leaves     Half her laurels unwon,     Dying too soon: yet green     Laurels she had, and a course     Short, but redoubled by Fame.     For him who must live many years     That life is best which slips away     Out of the light, and mutely; which avoids     Fame, and her less-fair followers, Envy, Strife,     Stupid Detraction, Jealousy, Cabal,     Insincere Praises:, which descends     The mossy quiet track to Age.     But, when immature Death     Beckons too early the guest     From the half-tried Banquet of Life,     Young, in the bloom of his days;     Leaves no leisure to press,     Slow and surely, the sweet     Of a tranquil life in the shade,     Fuller for him be the hours!     Give him emotion, though pain!     Let him live, let him feel, I have livd.     Heap up his moments with life!     Quicken his pulses with Fame!     And not friendless, nor yet     Only with strangers to meet,     Faces ungreeting and cold,     Thou, O Mournd One, to-day     Enterest the House of the Grave.     Those of thy blood, whom thou lovdst,     Have preceded thee; young,     Loving, a sisterly band:     Some in gift, some in art     Inferior; all in fame.     They, like friends, shall receive     This comer, greet her with joy;     Welcome the Sister, the Friend;     Hear with delight of thy fame.     Round thee they lie; the grass     Blows from their graves toward thine.     She, whose genius, though not     Puissant like thine, was yet     Sweet and graceful: and She,     (How shall I sing her?), whose soul     Knew no fellow for might,     Passion, vehemence, grief,     Daring, since Byron died,     That world-famd Son of Fire; She, who sank     Baffled, unknown, self-consumd;     Whose too bold dying song     Shook, like a clarion-blast, my soul.     Of one too I have heard,     A Brother, sleeps he here?,     Of all his gifted race     Not the least gifted; young,     Unhappy, beautiful; the cause     Of many hopes, of many tears.     O Boy, if here thou sleepst, sleep well!     On thee too did the Muse     Bright in thy cradle smile:     But some dark Shadow came     (I know not what) and interposd.     Sleep, O cluster of friends,     Sleep! or only, when May,     Brought by the West Wind, returns     Back to your native heaths,     And the plover is heard on the moors,     Yearly awake, to behold     The opening summer, the sky,     The shining moorland; to hear     The drowsy bee, as of old,     Hum oer the thyme, the grouse     Call from the heather in bloom:     Sleep; or only for this     Break your united repose.