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 Such were the lips whose salient playfulness 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 A livelier portraiture, And see in thought, as in their dreams, His actual image, verily produced; To strangers, and preserve for after-time, For he hath taken with the Living Dead Yea, with the Saints of God His holy habitation. Hearts, to which Will yearn towards him; and they too, (for such With truth to follow him, Having the breast-plate on of righteousness, 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 That living countenance, When on Llangedwin's terraces we paced Partaking there its hospitality, We with its honoured master spent, 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. The grass-grown site, where armed feet once trod Of Monacella's legend there are left, Well-nigh forgotten now: Thought, obstinate in hopeless hope, to see 4. The sunny recollections of those days A messenger of love he went, Not for ambition, nor for gain, Which, till these latter times, For this great end devotedly he went, His own loved paths of pleasantness and peace, 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, 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, That England, from her guilty torpor roused, Thither, devoted to the work, he went, 7. How beautiful are the feet of him That publisheth peace, That bringeth good tidings of good, Yet not the less admired The virtue that they saw. The European soldier, there so long |