Imperfect substitutes, whose use and power While in this serious mood we held discourse, guess Advanced to greet him. With a gracious mien -For me, I looked upon the pair, well pleased: Nature had framed them both, and both were marked By circumstance with intermixture fine Of contrast and resemblance. To an Oak The Other-like a stately Sycamore, A general greeting was exchanged; and soon Grave, and in truth full often sad." Is Man Doomed to decay, and then expire in dust! -Our cogitations this way have been drawn, These are the points," the Wanderer said, " on which Our Inquest turns.-Accord, good Sir! the light Of your experience, to dispel this gloom. By your persuasive wisdom shall the Heart That frets, or languishes, be stilled and cheered." "Our Nature," said the Priest, in mild reply, "Angels may weigh and fathom: they perceive, With undistempered and unclouded spirit, The object as it is; but, for ourselves, That speculative height we may not reach. The good and evil are our own; and we Are that which we would contemplate from far. Knowledge, for us, is difficult to gain— Is difficult to gain and hard to keep As Virtue's self; like Virtue is beset With snares; tried, tempted, subject to decay. Love, admiration, fear, desire, and hate, Blind were we without these; through these alone Or to record; we judge, but cannot be A crown, an attribute of sovereign power, -Look forth, or each man dive into himself, Yet for the general purposes of faith In Providence, for solace and support, We may not doubt that who can best subject The will to Reason's law, and strictliest live And act in that obedience, he shall gain The clearest apprehension of those truths, Which unassisted reason's utmost power Is too infirm to reach. But-waiving this, And our regards confining within bounds Of less exalted consciousness-through which The multitude are free to range very We safely may affirm that human life Is either fair or tempting, a soft scene Drawn from the very spot on which we stand. sway And whitened all the surface of the fields, If-from the sullen region of the North Towards the circuit of this holy ground Your walk conducts you, ere the vigorous sun, High climbing, hath attained his noon-tide height These Mounds, transversely lying side by side A dreary plain of unillumined snow, With more than wintry cheerlessness and gloom Saddening the heart. Go forward, and look back; On the same circuit of this church-yard ground Look, from the quarter whence the Lord of light, G G |