"The Sabbath" was warmly received throughout Scotland. It came from the heart; and it spoke to the heart of the nation. Grahame's vocation was now confirmed; and, in the following two years, during the long recess of the Scottish courts, he retired with his family to a cottage at Kirkhill, on the classic banks of the Esk, and gave himself up to
"Calm contemplation and poetic ease."
He now determined to abandon the law, and zealously prepared himself for the ministry. This had been his early, his constant wish. His appearance, voice, manner, as well as his talents and his piety, were all in keeping with that calling. He was ordained in 1809, and soon after settled with his family in Shipton, in Gloucestershire. This year he published his "British Georgics," a didactic agricultural poem. His health had long been delicate, and he was induced, in 1811, to go to Edinburgh for a change of air and for medical advice. But it was apparent to all that his days on earth could not be long. He had a natural desire of breathing his last in his own native city, and Mrs. Grahame set out with him, on the 11th of September, for Glasgow. He was barely able to reach the place, and died there on the 14th of September, 1811, in the forty-seventh year of his age, most sincerely and deeply lamented by a large circle of friends.2
Of the character of Grahame's poetry, there is now scarcely but one opinion. Its great charms are, its elevated moral tone, and its easy, simple, and unaffected description. "His 'Sabbath' will always hold its place among those poems which are, and deserve to be, in the hands of the people." He exhibits great tenderness of sentiment, which runs through all his writings, and sometimes deepens into true pathos. "We do not know any poetry, indeed, that lets us in so directly to the heart of the writer, and produces so full and pleasing a conviction that it is dictated by the genuine feelings which it aims at communicating to the reader. If there be less fire and elevation than in the strains of some of his contemporaries, there is more truth and tenderness than is commonly found along with those qualities."4
How still the morning of the hallow'd day!
Mute is the voice of rural labor, hush'd
The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers
That yester-morn bloom'd waving in the breeze.
Sounds the most faint attract the ear-the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating midway up the hill.
Calmness seems throned on yon unmoving cloud.
1 Notwithstanding a rather severe criticism in the "Edinburgh Review," v. 437. But, subsequently, in reviewing the author's "Georgics," the same Review made amends for its former severity.-See xvi. 213.
• Professor Wilson has written some beautiful lines to his memory, a portion of which will be found under the author's name.
"Quarterly Review," iii. 457.
"Edinburgh Review," xvi. 216.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas,
The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen;
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.
With dove-like wings Peace o'er yon village broods;
The dizzying mill-wheel rests; the anvil's din
Hath ceased; all, all around is quietness.
Less fearful on this day, the limping hare
Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man,
Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free,
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large;
And, as his stiff unwieldy bulk he rolls,
His iron-arm'd hoofs gleam in the morning ray.
But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day!
On other days, the man of toil is doom'd
To eat his joyless bread lonely, the ground
Both seat and board, screen'd from the winter's cold
And summer's heat by neighboring hedge or tree;
But on this day, embosom'd in his home,
He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;
With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy
Of giving thanks to God-not thanks of form,
A word and a grimace, but reverently,
With cover'd face and upward earnest eye.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day!
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air pure from the city's smoke;
While wandering slowly up the river-side,
He meditates on Him whose power he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough,
As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom
Around the roots; and while he thus surveys
With elevated joy each rural charm,
He hopes (yet fears presumption in the hope)
To reach those realms where Sabbath never ends.
A SUMMER SABBATH WALK.1
Delightful is this loneliness; it calms
My heart: pleasant the cool beneath these elms
That throw across the stream a moveless shade.
Here Nature in her midnoon whisper speaks;
How peaceful every sound!-the ring-dove's plaint,
Moan'd from the forest's gloomiest retreat,
While every other woodland lay is mute,
"The genius of Grahame is characterized by that cheerfulness which seeks and sees beauty in all the aspects of creation, and finds delight in whatever is high, holy, 'pure, and of good report. This must be felt by every one capable of dissociating fanaticism from true religion; and of believing that Christianity and gloom. instead of being synonymous terms, are utterly irreconcilable and separated."-Moir.
Save when the wren flits from her down-coved nest,
And from the root-sprigs trills her ditty clear-
The grasshopper's oft-pausing chirp-the buzz,
Angrily shrill, of moss-entangled bee,
That soon as loos'd booms with full twang away—
The sudden rushing of the minnow shoal,
Scared from the shallows by my passing tread:
Dimpling the water glides, with here and there
A glossy fly, skimming in circlets gay
The treacherous surface, while the quick-eyed trout
Watches his time to spring; or from above,
Some feather'd dam, purveying 'mong the boughs,
Darts from her perch, and to her plumeless brood
Bears off the prize. Sad emblem of man's lot!
Ile, giddy insect, from his native leaf,
(Where safe and happily he might have lurk'd,)
Elate upon ambition's gaudy wings,
Forgetful of his origin, and worse,
Unthinking of his end, flies to the stream,
And if from hostile vigilance he 'scape,
Buoyant he flutters but a little while,
Mistakes the inverted image of the sky
For heaven itself, and, sinking, meets his fate.
Now, let me trace the stream up to its source
Among the hills, its runnel by degrees
Diminishing, the murmur turns a tinkle.
Closer and closer still the banks approach,
Tangled so thick with pleaching bramble shoots,
With brier and hazel branch, and hawthorn spray,
That, fain to quit the dingle, glad I mount
Into the open air: grateful the breeze
That fans my throbbing temples! smiles the plain
Spread wide below: how sweet the placid view!
But, oh! more sweet the thought, heart-soothing thought,
That thousands and ten thousands of the sons
Of toil partake this day the common joy
Of rest, of peace, of viewing hill and dale,
Of breathing in the silence of the woods,
And blessing Him who gave the Sabbath-day.
Yes! my heart flutters with a freer throb,
To think that now the townsman wanders forth
Among the fields and meadows, to enjoy
The coolness of the day's decline, to see
His children sport around, and simply pull
The flower and weed promiscuous, as a boon
Which proudly in his breast they smiling fix.
But hark! a plaintive sound floating along!
'Tis from yon heath-roof'd shieling; now it dies
Away, now rises full; it is the song
Which He, who listens to the hallelujahs
Of choiring seraphim, delights to hear:
It is the music of the heart, the voice
Of venerable age, of guileless youth,
In kindly circle seated on the ground
Before their wicker door. Behold the man!
The grandsire and the saint; his silvery locks
Beam in the parting ray; before him lies,
Upon the smooth-cropt sward, the open book,
His comfort, stay, and ever-new delight;
While heedless at a side, the lisping boy
Fondles the lamb that nightly shares his couch.
PERSECUTION AND FAITH OF THE COVENANTERS.
With them each day was holy, every hour
They stood prepared to die, a people doom'd
To death;-old men, and youths, and simple maids.
With them each day was holy; but that morn
On which the angel said, "See where the Lord
Was laid," joyous arose; to die that day
Was bliss. Long ere the dawn, by devious ways,
O'er hills, through woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought The upland muirs, where rivers, there but brooks, Dispart to different seas: Fast by such brooks
A little glen is sometimes scoop'd, a plat
With green sward gay, and flowers that strangers seem
Amid the heathery wild, that all around
Fatigues the eye. In solitudes like these,
Thy persecuted children, Scotia, foil'd
A tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws:
There, leaning on his spear, (one of the array,
Whose gleam, in former days, hath scathed the rose
On England's banner, and had powerless struck
The infatuate monarch and his wavering host,)
The lyart veteran heard the word of God
By Cameron thunder'd, or by Renwick pour'd
In gentle stream; then rose the song, the loud
Acclaim of praise. The wheeling plover ceased
Her plaint. The solitary place was glad,
And on the distant cairns the watcher's ear
Caught doubtfully at times the breeze-borne note.
But years more gloomy follow'd; and no more
The assembled people dared, in face of day,
To worship God, or even at the dead
Of night, save when the wintry-storm raved fierce,
And thunder-peals compell'd the men of blood
To couch within their dens: then dauntlessly
The scatter'd few would meet, in some deep dell
By rocks o'er-canopied, to hear the voice,
Their faithful pastor's voice: He by the gleam
Of sheeted lightning oped the sacred book,
And words of comfort spake: Over their souls
His accents soothing came-as to her young
The heathfowl's plumes, when, at the close of eve,
She gathers in, mournful, her brood dispersed
By murderous sport, and o'er the remnant spreads
Fondly her wings; close nestling 'neath her breast,
They, cherish'd, cower amid the purple blooms.
THE POOR MAN'S FUNERAL.
Yon motley, sable-suited throng, that wait
Around the poor man's door, announce a tale
Of wo:-the husband, parent, is no more.
Contending with disease, he labor'd long,
By penury compell'd; yielding at last,
He laid him down to die; but, lingering on
From day to day, he from his sick-bed saw,
Heart-broken quite, his children's looks of want
Veil'd in a clouded smile; alas! he heard
The elder lispingly attempt to still
The younger's plaint-languid he raised his head,
And thought he yet could toil, but sunk
Into the arms of Death-the poor man's friend.
The coffin is borne out; the humble pomp
Moves slowly on; the orphan mourner's hand
(Poor helpless child!) just reaches to the pall.
And now they pass into the field of graves,
And now around the narrow house they stand,
And view the plain black board sink from the sight.
Hollow the mansion of the dead resounds,
As falls each spadeful of the bone-mix'd mould.
The turf is spread; uncover'd is each head-
A last farewell: all turn their several ways.
Woes me! those tear-dimm'd eyes, that sobbing breast!
Poor child! thou thinkest of the kindly hand
That wont to lead thee home: no more that hand
Shall aid thy feeble gait, or gently stroke
Thy sun-bleach'd head and downy cheek.
But go, a mother waits thy homeward steps;
In vain her eyes dwell on the sacred page-
Her thoughts are in the grave; 'tis thou alone,
Her first-born child, canst rouse that statue-gaze
Of wo profound. Haste to the widow'd arms;
Look with thy father's look, speak with his voice,
And melt a heart that else will break with grief.
GRANVILLE SHARP, 1735-1813.
"THE lives of some men may be contemplated in their opinions and private studies; of others, in their exertions and public concerns. It is rarely that the world beholds the union of unceasing action and unwearied study; still more rarely does it enjoy the sight of such united power devoting itself, at once meekly and resolutely, in the fear of God, to the best good of man. Yet such was the character of Granville Sharp."
1 See "Memoirs of Granville Sharp, Esq.," by Prince Hoare. London, 1820, 4to, pp. 554.
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