190 OLD FAVOURITES (Poor Matthias.) POOR Matthias! Would'st thou have Rover died-Atossa too. Closer knit their life with ours. Hands had stroked them which are cold Now for years, in churchyard mould; Comrades of our past were they, Of that unreturning day. Changed and aging, they and we Alway from their presence broke Geist came next, our little friend; Faithful love in depth divine- Matthew Arnold. 191 THE VICAR SOME years ago, ere time and taste St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket, Back flew the bolt of lissom lath; Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle, Led the lorn traveller up the path, Through clean-clipped rows of box and myrtle ; And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, Upon the parlour-steps collected, Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say, 'Our master knows you-you're expected.' Uprose the Reverend Dr. Brown, Uprose the Doctor's winsome marrow; The lady laid her knitting down, Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow; Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed, Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner, He found a stable for his steed, And welcome for himself, and dinner. If, when he reached his journey's end, And twenty curious scraps of knowledge,— If he departed as he came, With no new light on love or liquor,— His talk was like a stream, which runs It passed from Mahomet to Moses; Of loud Dissent the mortal terror; And when, by dint of page and line, He 'stablished truth, or startled error, The Baptist found him far too deep, The Deist sighed with saving sorrow, And the lean Levite went to sleep, And dreamed of tasting pork to-morrow. His sermon never said or showed That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious Without refreshment on the road From Jerome, or from Athanasius: X And sure a righteous zeal inspired The hand and head that penned and planned them, For all who understood admired, And some who did not understand them. He wrote, too, in a quiet way, Small treatises, and smaller verses, He did not think all mischief fair, Although he had a taste for smoking; It will not be improved by burning. And he was kind, and loved to sit In the low hut or garnished cottage, And praise the farmer's homely wit, And share the widow's homelier pottage: At his approach complaint grew mild; And when his hands unbarred the shutter, The clammy lips of fever smiled The welcome which they could not utter. He always had a tale for me Of Julius Cæsar, or of Venus; When he began to quote Augustine. Alack the change! in vain I look For haunts in which my boyhood trifled,— Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear Hic ja cet Gulielmus Brown, Vir nullâ non donandus lauru. Winthrop Mackworth Praed. 192 THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME I gaze upon a city,— A city new and strange— Before me lie dark waters |