O blest are the Hearers, and proud be the Hand Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a Band; I am glad for him, blind as he is! all the while If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile. That tall Man, a Giant in bulk and in height, There's a Cripple who leans on his Crutch; like a Tower That long has leaned forward, leans hour after hour! A Mother, whose Spirit in fetters is bound, While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound. Now, Coaches and Chariots! roar on like a stream; Here are twenty souls happy as Souls in a dream: They are deaf to your murmurs - they care not for you, Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue! XVII. ' STEPPING WESTWARD. While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sun-set, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What you are stepping westward." "WHAT you are stepping westward?" 'Twould be a wildish destiny, If we, who thus together roam The dewy ground was dark and cold; And stepping westward seemed to be I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound The voice was soft, and she who spake The very sound of courtesy: Its power was felt; and while my eye XVIII. GLEN-ALMAIN, OR THE NARROW GLEN. In this still place, remote from men, He sang of battles, and the breath Of stormy war, and violent death; And should, methinks, when all was past, Have rightfully been laid at last Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent As by a spirit turbulent; Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild, And every thing unreconciled; In some complaining, dim retreat,. For fear and melancholy meet; A more entire tranquillity. Does then the Bard sleep here indeed? Or is it but a groundless creed? What matters it? - I blame them not Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot Was moved; and in this way expressed Their notion of its perfect rest. A Convent, even a hermit's Cell Would break the silence of this Dell: It is not quiet, is not ease; But something deeper far than these: Is of the grave; and of austere |