Classic Poem

The Contrast

I

O earth, meek mother! with thy powers at war,
How rudely 'gainst thy harmonies we strike!
The voice of men and cities seems to jar
Thy sounds more than thy stillness: how unlike
These pastoral bleatings or this wild bird's wails
Absorbed so kindly into all these mountain vales —

II.

Absorbed, or rather by true love prolonged
Through echo's lonely outposts in far links,
And justly: else earth surely would have wronged
That old coeval sound: but whoso thinks
That she to men's mutations will be chained
Deems lightly of the place to which she is ordained.

III.

Weak and dejected, for the gift of song,
Intemperately used, had sapped my health,
I lived in open air the whole day long
In hill or wood, extracting thence a wealth
Of chaste delights my future toil to bless,
Mingled with just self-blame for fancy's late excess.

IV.

Within a natural temple of old pine,
On whose grey columns and red withered floor
The sun with noontide force could barely shine,
I lay at ease: around me a gay store
Of cuckoo-plant, with white and winking eyes
Furled and unfurled, among the starting roots did rise.

V.

Invisible creatures rustled in the moss
And the crisp leaves; a wild suspicious eye
Looked from a thrush's nest: and at a loss
To find his master, closely harbored nigh,
My dog at times among the boughs was seen,
Like some white thing that floats deep in the waters green.

VI.

And by the tiny trumpets of the bees
Was I well soothed, and the blythe insect hum;
And winds were born and died within the trees,
Prisoned and stifled in the leafy gloom:
The plaint of lambs, the tinkling of a brook,
Refined by distance, came unto this sombre nook.

VII.

Aloft the stockdoves seemed with their deep cooing
All the broad wood to quiet and control,
An eloquence like the continual wooing
Of holy thoughts within a Christian soul:
Remote I saw some horses in a plough,
The world — seen, as the Saints should see it, far below.

VIII.

God's blessing was upon the earth, all bound
In deep content and joy from vale to height:
There was that concord of harmonious sound,
Those thrillings, almost vocal, of strong light,
Suggesting to transported ear and eye
A present Power, diviner then tranquillity.

IX.

Homeward I went, with thoughts such as might wait
Upon the vision in that shelter given,
In meditation chastened yet elate,
When all things seem transparent, and true Heaven
Glows through all earthly loveliness and power,
As though the veil were being consumed hour after hour.

X.

Then suddenly by duty was I led
Unto a scene of desperate misery,
A moaning sinner on his dying bed,
A drunkard — oh how unprepared to die!
Too weak for prayer, for Sacrament unmeet,
O Heaven! what sight was this a pastor's eye to greet!

XI.

But let us veil the scene: a cooling breeze
Through the porch honeysuckle gently sighing,
The singing birds, clear hills, and budding trees —
Amid all this the sinner lay a-dying:
O when I quitted that most dismal room
The outward sunshine was all baffled by the gloom.

XII.

Most in harmonious world! which can compress
Such sweetness and such horror in an hour,
As though all beauty and all fearfulness
Turned on one hinge, were but one folding door,
Each counteracting each, with woe and mirth
In mutual eclipse o'ershadowing the earth.

XIII.

Such and so solemn is the pastor's life,
Strange alternations which, well weighed, may yield
Reasoning sublime, and contemplation rife
With virtuous purposes by faith to build
The soul which doth among such fortunes range.
The death-bell tolls: Christ aid him in his fearful change!English