“And can they give it to a poorer man?”
Proceeding thus, - “My merit could they know;
And knew my need, how freely they’d bestow;
But though they know not, these remain the same,
And are a strong, although a secret claim:
To me, alas! the want and worth are known;
Why then, in fact, ’tis but to take my own.”
Thought after thought pour’d in, a tempting train: -
“Suppose it done, - who is it could complain?
How could the poor? for they such trifles share,
As add no comfort, as suppress no care;
But many a pittance makes a worthy heap, -
What says the law? that silence puts to sleep: -
Nought then forbids, the danger could we shun,
And sure the business may be safely done.
“But am I earnest? - earnest? No. - I say,
If such my mind, that I could plan a way;
Let me reflect; - I’ve not allow’d me time
To purse the pieces, and if dropp’d they’d chime:”
Fertile is evil in the soul of man. -
He paused, - said Jachin, “They may drop on bran.
Why then ’tis safe and (all consider’d) just,
The poor receive it, - ’tis no breach of trust:
The old and widows may their trifles miss,
There must be evil in a good like this:
But I’ll be kind - the sick I’ll visit twice,
When now but once, and freely give advice.
Yet let me think again:” - Again he tried,
For stronger reasons on his passion’s side,
And quickly these were found, yet slowly he complied.
The morning came: the common service done,
Shut every door, - the solemn rite begun, -
And, as the priest the sacred sayings read,
The clerk went forward, trembling as he tread:
O’er the tall pew he held the box, and heard
The offer’d piece, rejoicing as he fear’d:
Just by the pillar, as he cautious tripp’d,
And turn’d the aisle, he then a portion slipp’d
From the full store, and to the pocket sent,
But held a moment - and then down it went.
The priest read on, on walk’d the man afraid,
Till a gold offering in the plate was laid:
Trembling he took it, for a moment stopp’d,
Then down it fell, and sounded as it dropp’d;
Amazed he started, for th’ affrighted man,
Lost and bewilder’d, thought not of the bran.
But all were silent, all on things intent
Of high concern, none ear to money lent;
So on he walk’d, more cautious than before,
And gain’d the purposed sum and one piece more.
“Practice makes perfect:” when the month came round,
He dropp’d the cash, nor listen’d for a sound:
But yet, when last of all th’ assembled flock
He ate and drank, - it gave th’ electric shock:
Oft was he forced his reasons to repeat,
Ere he could kneel in quiet at his seat;
But custom soothed him - ere a single year
All this was done without restraint or fear:
Cool and collected, easy and composed,
He was correct till all the service closed;
Then to his home, without a groan or sigh,
Gravely he went, and laid his treasure by.
Want will complain: some widows had express’d
A doubt if they were favour’d like the rest;
The rest described with like regret their dole,
And thus from parts they reason’d to the whole:
When all agreed some evil must be done,
Or rich men’s hearts grew harder than a stone.
Our easy vicar cut the matter short;
He would not listen to such vile report.
All were not thus - there govern’d in that year
A stern stout churl, an angry overseer;
A tyrant fond of power, loud, lewd, and most severe:
Him the mild vicar, him the graver clerk,
Advised, reproved, but nothing would he mark.
Save the disgrace; “and that, my friends,” said he,
“Will I avenge, whenever time may be.”
And now, alas! ’twas time: - from man to man
Doubt and alarm and shrewd suspicions ran.
With angry spirit and with sly intent,
This parish-ruler to the altar went:
A private mark he fix’d on shillings three,
And but one mark could in the money see:
Besides in peering round, he chanced to note
A sprinkling slight on Jachin’s Sunday-coat:
All doubt was over: - when the flock were bless’d,
In wrath he rose, and thus his mind express’d: -
“Foul deeds are here!” and saying this, he took
The Clerk, whose conscience, in her cold-fit, shook:
His pocket then was emptied on the place;
All saw his guilt; all witness’d his disgrace:
He fell, he fainted, not a groan, a look,
Escaped the culprit; ’twas a final stroke -
A death-wound never to be heal’d - a fall
That all had witness’d, and amazed were all.
As he recover’d, to his mind it came,
“I owe to Satan this disgrace and shame:”
All the seduction now appear’d in view;
“Let me withdraw,” he said, and he withdrew:
No one withheld him, all in union cried,
E’en the avenger, - “We are satisfied:”
For what has death in any form to give,
Equal to that man’s terrors, if he live?
He lived in freedom, but he hourly saw
How much more fatal justice is than law;
He saw another in his office reign,
And his mild master treat him with disdain:
He saw that all men shunn’d him, some reviled,
The harsh pass’d frowning, and the simple smiled;
The town maintain’d him, but with some reproof,
And clerks and scholars proudly kept aloof.
In each lone place, dejected and dismay’d,
Shrinking from view, his wasting form he laid;
Or to the restless sea and roaring wind
Gave the strong yearnings of a ruin’d mind:
On the broad beach, the silent summer-day,
Stretch’d on some wreck, he wore his life away;
Or where the river mingles with the sea,
Or on the mud-bank by the elder tree,
Or by the bounding marsh-dike, there was he:
And when unable to forsake the town,
In the blind courts he sat desponding down -
Always alone: then feebly would he crawl
The church-way walk, and lean upon the wall:
Too ill for this, he lay beside the door,
Compell’d to hear the reasoning of the poor:
He look’d so pale, so weak, the pitying crowd
Their firm belief of his repentance vow’d;
They saw him then so ghastly and so thin,
That they exclaim’d, “Is this the work of sin?”
“Yes,” in his better moments, he replied,
“Of sinful avarice and the spirit’s pride; -
While yet untempted, I was safe and well;
Temptation came; I reason’d, and I fell:
To be man’s guide and glory I design’d,
A rare example for our sinful kind;
But now my weakness and my guilt I see,
And am a warning - man, be warn’d by me!”
He said, and saw no more the human face;
To a lone loft he went, his dying place,
And, as the vicar of his state inquired,
Turn’d to the wall and silently expired!
LETTER XX.
THE POOR OF THE BOROUGH.
Patience and sorrow strove
Who should express her goodliest.
SHAKESPEARE.
“No charms she now can boast,” - ’tis true,
But other charmers wither too:
“And she is old,” - the fact I know,
And old will other heroines grow;
But not like them has she been laid,
In ruin’d castle sore dismay’d;
Where naughty man and ghostly spright
Fill’d her pure mind with awe and dread,
Stalk’d round the room, put out the light,
And shook the curtains round her bed.
No cruel uncle kept her land,
No tyrant father forced her hand;
She had no vixen virgin-aunt,
Without whose aid she could not eat,
And yet who poison’d all her meat,
With gibe and sneer and taunt.
Yet of the heroine she’d a share, -
She saved a lover from despair,
And granted all his wish in spite
Of what she knew and felt was right:
But, heroine then no more,
She own’d the fault, and wept and pray’d
And humbly took the parish aid,
And dwelt among the poor.
------------------
ELLEN ORFORD.
{11}
The Widow’s Cottage - Blind Ellen one - Hers not the Sorrows or Adventures of Heroines - What these are, first described - Deserted Wives; rash Lovers; courageous Damsels: in desolated Mansions; in grievous Perplexity - These Evils, however severe, of short Duration - Ellen’s Story - Her Employment in Childhood - First Love; first Adventure; its miserable Termination - An Idiot Daughter - A Husband - Care in Business without Success - The Man’s Despondency and its Effect - Their Children: how disposed of - One particularly unfortunate - Fate of the Daughter
- Ellen keeps a School and is happy - becomes Blind; loses her School - Her Consolations.
OBSERVE yon tenement, apart and small,
Where the wet pebbles shine upon the wall;
Where the low benches lean beside the door,
And the red paling bounds the space before;
Where thrift and lavender, and lad’s-love bloom, -
That humble dwelling is the widow’s home;
There live a pair, for various fortunes known,
But the blind EUen will relate her own; -
Yet ere we hear the story she can tell,
On prouder sorrows let us briefly dwell.
I’ve often marvell’d, when, by night, by day,
I’ve mark’d the manners moving in my way,
And heard the language and beheld the lives
Of lass and lover, goddesses and wives,
That books, which promise much of life to give,
Should show so little how we truly live.
To me, it seems, their females and their men
Are but the creatures of the author’s pen;
Nay, creatures borrow’d and again convey’d
From book to book - the shadows of a shade:
Life, if they’d search, would show them many a change;
The ruin sudden, and the misery strange!
With more of grievous, base, and dreadful things,
Than novelists relate or poet sings:
But they, who ought to look the world around,
Spy out a single spot in fairy-ground;
Where all, in turn, ideal forms behold,
And plots are laid and histories are told.
Time have I lent - I would their debt were less -
To flow’ry pages of sublime distress;
And to the heroine’s soul-distracting fears
I early gave my sixpences and tears:
Oft have I travell’d in these tender tales,
To Darnley-Cottages and Maple-Vales,
And watch’d the fair-one from the first-born sigh,
When Henry pass’d and gazed in passing by;
Till I beheld them pacing in the park
Close by a coppice where ’twas cold and dark;
When such affection with such fate appear’d,
Want and a father to be shunn’d and fear’d,
Without employment, prospect, cot, or cash;
That I have judged th’ heroic souls were rash.
Now shifts the scene, - the fair in tower confined,
In all things suffers but in change of mind;
Now woo’d by greatness to a bed of state,
Now deeply threaten’d with a dungeon’s grate;
Till, suffering much, and being tried enough,
She shines, triumphant maid! - temptation-proof.
Then was I led to vengeful monks, who mix
With nymphs and swains, and play unpriestly tricks;
Then view’d banditti who in forest wide,
And cavern vast, indignant virgins hide;
Who, hemm’d with bands of sturdiest rogues about,
Find some strange succour, and come virgins out.
I’ve watch’d a wint’ry night on castle-walls,
I’ve stalk’d by moonlight through deserted halls,
And when the weary world was sunk to rest,
I’ve had such sights as may not be express’d.
Lo! that chateau, the western tower decay’d,
The peasants shun it, - they are all afraid;
For there was done a deed! - could walls reveal,
Or timbers tell it, how the heart would feel!
Most horrid was it: - for, behold, the floor
Has stain of blood, and will be clean no more:
Hark to the winds! which through the wide saloon
And the long passage send a dismal tune, -
Music that ghosts delight in; and now heed
Yon beauteous nymph, who must unmask the deed;
See! with majestic sweep she swims alone,
Through rooms, all dreary, guided by a groan:
Though windows rattle, and though tap’stries shake,
And the feet falter every step they take,
’Mid moans and gibing sprights she silent goes,
To find a something, which will soon expose
The villanies and wiles of her determined foes:
And, having thus adventured, thus endured,
Fame, wealth, and lover, are for life secured.
Much have I fear’d, but am no more afraid,
When some chaste beauty, by some wretch betray’d,