ODE

ON THE PORTRAIT OF BISHOP HEBER.

1.

YES,.. such as these were Heber's lineaments; Such his capacious front,

Such was the gentle countenance which bore Of generous feeling, and of golden truth, Sure Nature's sterling impress; never there Unruly passion left

Its ominous marks infix'd,

Nor the worse die of evil habit set
An inward stain ingrain'd.

Such were the lips whose salient playfulness
Enliven'd peaceful hours of private life;
Whose eloquence

Held congregations open-ear'd,

As from the heart it flow'd, a living stream Of Christian wisdom, pure and undefiled.

2.

And what if there be those

Who in the cabinet
Of memory hold enshrined

A livelier portraiture,

And see in thought, as in their dreams,

His actual image, verily produced;
Yet shall this counterfeit convey

To strangers, and preserve for after-time,
All that could perish of him, . . all that else
Even now had past away :

For he hath taken with the Living Dead
His honourable place, ..

Yea, with the Saints of God

His holy habitation. Hearts, to which
Thro' ages he shall speak,

Will yearn towards him; and they too, (for such
Will be,) who gird their loins

With truth to follow him,

Having the breast-plate on of righteousness,
The helmet of salvation, and the shield
Of faith,.. they too will gaze
Upon his effigy

With reverential love,

'Till they shall grow familiar with its lines, And know him when they see his face in Heaven.

3.

Ten years have held their course
Since last I look'd upon

That living countenance,

When on Llangedwin's terraces we paced
Together, to and fro.

Partaking there its hospitality,

We with its honoured master spent,
Well-pleased, the social hours;

His friend and mine, my earliest friend, whom I

Have ever, thro' all changes, found the same,

From boyhood to grey hairs,

In goodness, and in worth and warmth of heart.
Together then we traced

The grass-grown site, where armed feet once trod
The threshold of Glendower's embattled hall;
Together sought Melangel's lonely Church,
Saw the dark yews, majestic in decay,
Which in their flourishing strength
Cyveilioc might have seen;
Letter by letter traced the lines
On Yorwerth's fabled tomb;
And curiously observed what vestiges,
Mouldering and mutilate,

Of Monacella's legend there are left,
A tale humane, itself

Well-nigh forgotten now:
Together visited the ancient house
Which from the hill-slope takes
Its Cymric name euphonious; there to view,
Tho' drawn by some rude limner inexpert,
The faded portrait of that lady fair,
Beside whose corpse her husband watch'd,
And with perverted faith,
Preposterously placed,

Thought, obstinate in hopeless hope, to see
The beautiful dead, by miracle, revive.

4.

The sunny recollections of those days
Full soon were overcast, when Heber went
Where half this wide world's circle lay
Between us interposed.

A messenger of love he went,
A true Evangelist;

Not for ambition, nor for gain,
Nor of constraint, save such as duty lays
Upon the disciplin❜d heart,
Took he the overseeing on himself,
Of that wide flock dispers'd,

Which, till these latter times,
Had there been left to stray
Neglected all too long.

For this great end devotedly he went,
Forsaking friends and kin,

His own loved paths of pleasantness and peace,
Books, leisure, privacy,

Prospects (and not remote), of all wherewith Authority could dignify desert;

And, dearer far to him,

Pursuits that with the learned and the wise Should have assured his name its lasting place.

5.

Large, England, is the debt

Thou owest to Heathendom

To India most of all, where Providence,
Giving thee thy dominion there in trust,
Upholds its baseless strength.
All seas have seen thy red-cross flag
In war triumphantly display'd;
Late only has thou set that standard up
On pagan shores in peace!

Yea, at this hour the cry of blood

Riseth against thee from beneath the wheels

Of that seven-headed Idol's car accurst; Against thee, from the widow's funeral pile The smoke of human sacrifice Ascends, even now, to Heaven

6.

The debt shall be discharged; the crying sin Silenced; the foul offence

For ever done away.

Thither our saintly Heber went,
In promise and in pledge

That England, from her guilty torpor roused,
Should zealously and wisely undertake
Her aweful task assign'd:

Thither, devoted to the work, he went,
There spent his precious life,
There left his holy dust.

7.

How beautiful are the feet of him
That bringeth good tidings,

That publisheth peace,

That bringeth good tidings of good,
That proclaimeth salvation for men
Where'er the Christian Patriarch went,
Honour and reverence heralded his way,
And blessings followed him.
The Malabar, the Moor, the Cingalese,
Tho' unillumed by faith,

Yet not the less admired

The virtue that they saw.

The European soldier, there so long