Extempore Effusion Upon the Death of James Hogg

When first, descending from the moorlands, I saw the stream of Yarrow glide Along a bare and open valley, The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide. When last along its banks I wandered, Through groves that had begun to shed Their golden leaves upon the pathways, My steps the Border-minstrel led. The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer, ’Mid mouldering ruins low he lies ; And death upon the braes of Yarrow, Has closed the Shepherd-poet’s eyes : Nor has the rolling year twice measured, From sign to sign, its steadfast course, Since every mortal power of Coleridge Was frozen at its marvellous source ;

The rapt One, of the godlike forehead, The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth : And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle, Has vanished from his lonely hearth.

Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits, Or waves that own no curbing hand, How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land !

Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber Were earlier raised, remain to hear A timid voice, that asks in whispers, ‘Who next will drop and disappear?’

Our haughty life is crowned with darkness, Like London with its own black wreath, On which with thee, O Crabbe ! forth-looking, I gazed from Hampstead’s breezy heath.

As if but yesterday departed, Thou too art gone before ; but why, O’er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered, Should frail survivors heave a sigh ? Mourn rather for that holy spirit, Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep ; For her who, ere her summer faded, Has sunk into a breathless sleep.

No more of old romantic sorrows, For slaughtered youth or love-lorn maid ! With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten, And Ettrick mourns with her their poet dead.