Classic Poem

DEDICATION OF THE AUTHOR'S COLLOQUIES ON THE PROGRESS AND
PROSPECTS OF SOCIETY .

TO THE MEMORY OF THE REV. HERBERT HILL,

Not upon marble or sepulchral brass
Have I the record of thy worth inscribed,
Dear Uncle! nor from Chantrey's chisel ask'd
A monumental statue, which might wear
Through many an age thy venerable form.
Such tribute, were I rich in this world's wealth,
Should rightfully be rendered, in discharge
Of grateful duty, to the world evinced
When testifying so by outward sign
Its deep and inmost sense. But what I can
Is rendered piously, prefixing here
Thy perfect lineaments, two centuries
Before thy birth by Holbein's happy hand
Prefigured thus. It is the portraiture
Of More, the mild, the learned, and the good;
Traced in that better stage of human life,
When vain imaginations, troublous thoughts,
And hopes and fears have had their course, and left
The intellect composed, the heart at rest,
Nor yet decay hath touch'd our mortal frame.
Such was the man whom Henry, of desert
Appreciant alway, chose for highest trust;
Whom England in that eminence approved;
Whom Europe honored, and Erasmus loved.
Such was he ere heart-hardening bigotry
Obscured his spirit, made him with himself
Discordant, and contracting then his brow,
With sour defeature marr'd his countenance.
What he was, in his best and happiest time,
Even such wert thou, dear Uncle! such thy look
Benign and thoughtful; such thy placid mien;
Thine eye serene, significant, and strong,
Bright in its quietness, yet brightening oft
With quick emotion of benevolence,
Or flash of active fancy, and that mirth
Which aye with sober wisdom well accords.
Nor ever did true Nature, with more nice
Exactitude, fit to the inner man
The fleshly mould, than when she stamp'd on thine
Her best credentials, and bestow'd on thee
An aspect, to whose sure benignity
Beasts with instinctive confidence could trust,
Which at a glance obtain'd respect from men,
And won at once good will from all the good.

Such as in semblance, such in word and deed
Lisbon beheld him, when for many a year
The even tenor of his spotless life
Adorn'd the English Church, — her minister,
In that stronghold of Rome's Idolatry,
To God and man approved. What Englishman,
Who in those peaceful days of Portugal
Resorted thither, curious to observe
Her cities, and the works and ways of men,
But sought him, and from his abundant stores
Of knowledge profited? What stricken one,
Sent thither to protract a living death,
Forlorn perhaps, and friendless else, but found
A friend in him? What mourners, — who had seen
The object of their agonizing hopes
In that sad cypress ground deposited,
Wherein so many a flower of British growth,
Untimely faded and cut down, is laid,
In foreign earth compress'd, — but bore away
A life-long sense of his compassionate care,
His Christian goodness? Faithful shepherd he,
And vigilant against the wolves, who, there,
If entrance might be won, would straight beset
The dying stranger, and with merciless zeal
Bay the death-bed. In every family
Throughout his fold was he the welcome guest,
Alike to every generation dear,
The children's favorite, and the grandsire's friend,
Tried, trusted and beloved. So liberal, too,
In secret alms, even to his utmost means,
That they who served him, and who saw in part
The channels where his constant bounty ran,
Maugre their own uncharitable faith,
Believed him, for his works, secure of Heaven.
It would have been a grief for me to think
The features, which so perfectly express'd
That excellent mind, should irretrievably
From earth have past away, existing now
Only in some few faithful memories
Insoul'd, and not by any limner's skill
To be imbodied thence. A blessing then
On him, in whose prophetic counterfeit
Preserved, the children now, who were the crown
Of his old age, may see their father's face,
Here to the very life portray'd, as when
Spain's mountain passes, and her ilex woods,
And fragant wildernesses, side by side,
With him I traversed, in my morn of youth,
And gather'd knowledge from his full discourse.
Often, in former years, I pointed out,
Well-pleased, the casual portrait, which so well
Assorted in all points; and haply since,
While lingering o'er this meditative work,
Sometimes that likeness, not unconsciously,
Hath tinged the strain; and therefore, for the sake
Of this resemblance, are these volumes now
Thus to his memory properly inscribed.

O friend! O more than father! whom I found
Forbearing alway, alway kind; to whom
No gratitude can speak the debt I owe;
Far on their earthly pilgrimage advanced
Are they who knew thee when we drew the breath
Of that delicious clime! The most are gone;
And whoso yet survive of those who then
Were in their summer season, on the tree
Of life hang here and there like wintry leaves,
Which the first breeze will from the bough bring down.
I, too, am in the sear, the yellow leaf.
And yet (no wish is nearer to my heart)
One arduous labor more, as unto thee
In duty bound, full fain would I complete,
(So Heaven permit,) recording faithfully
The heroic rise, the glories, the decline,
Of that fallen country, dear to us, wherein
The better portion of thy days was past;
And where, in fruitful intercourse with thee,
My intellectual life received betimes
The bias it hath kept. Poor Portugal,
In us thou harboredst no ungrateful guests!
We loved thee well; Mother magnanimous
Of mighty intellects and faithful hearts, —
For such iNother times thou wert, nor yet
To be despair'd of, for not yet, methinks,
Degenerate wholly, — yes, we loved thee well!
And in thy moving story, (so but life
Be given me to mature the gathered store
Of thirty years,) poet and politic,
And Christian sage, (only philosopher
Who from the Well of living water drinks
Never to thirst again,) shall find, I ween,
For fancy, and for profitable thought,
Abundant food.
Alas! should this be given,
Such consummation of my work will now
Be but a mournful close, the one being gone,
Whom to have satisfied was still to me
A pure reward, outweighing far all breath
Of public praise. O friend revered, O guide
And fellow-laborer in this ample field,
How large a portion of myself hath past
With thee, from earth to heaven! — Thus they who reach
Gray hairs die piecemeal. But in good old age
Thou hast departed; not to be bewail'd, —
Oh no! The promise on the Mount vouchsafed,
Nor abrogate by any later law
Reveal'd to man, — that promise, as by thee
Full piously deserved, was faithfully
In thee fulfill'd, and in the land thy days
Were long. I would not, as I saw thee last,
For a king's ransom, have detain'd thee here,
Bent, like the antique sculptor's limbless trunk;
By chronic pain, yet with thine eye unquench'd,
The ear undimm'd, the mind retentive still,
The heart unchanged, the intellectual lamp
Burning in its corporeal sepulchre.
No; not if human wishes had had power
To have suspended Nature's constant work,
Would they who loved thee have detain'd thee fires
Waiting for death.
That trance is over. Thou
Art enter'd on thy heavenly heritage;
And I, whose dial of mortality
Points to the eleventh hour, shall follow soon,
Meantime, with dutiful and patient hope,
I labor that our names conjoin'd may long
Survive, in honor one day to be held
Where old Lisboa from her hills o'erlooks
Expanded Tagus, with its populous shores
And pine woods, to Palmella's crested height
Nor there alone; but in those rising realms
Where now the offsets of the Lusian tree
Push forth their vigorous shoots, — from central plains,
Whence rivers flow divergent, to the gulf
Southward, where wild Parana disembogues
A sea-like stream; and northward, in a world
Of forests, where huge Orellana clips
His thousand islands with his thousand arms.