THREE PICTURES FROM "THE DESERTED VILLAGE."
Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose.
There as I pass'd, with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below:
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young,
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school,
The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind—
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail,
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,
For all the bloomy flush of life is fled—
All but yon widow'd, solitary thing,
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron—forc'd in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn—
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain!
Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden-flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's[1] modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing[2] rich with forty pounds[3] a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place;
Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain:
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier,[4] kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talked the night away,
Wept o'er his wounds or, tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.
At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place:
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children followed with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed;
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.[5]
Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
There in his noisy mansion,[6] skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school.
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding[7] tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village[8] all declared how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides[9] presage,
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:[10]
In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill;
For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumphed is forgot.
NOTES.
[1.] The village preacher.—"This picture of the village pastor," says Irving, "which was taken in part from the character of his father, embodied likewise the recollections of his brother Henry; for the natures of the father and son seem to have been identical. . . . To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expiatory spirit; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which he had not been able to practise."
[2.] passing rich. Exceedingly rich. The word is a common one among the poets. "Is she not passing fair?" (Shakespeare, "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act iv, sc. 4); "How passing sweet is solitude" (Cowper, "Retirement").
[3.] forty pounds. In his dedication of "The Traveller," Goldsmith refers to his brother Henry as "a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year."
[4.] broken soldier. See "The Soldier's Dream," Campbell.
"And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay!"
[5.] The simile included in these four lines, says Lord Lytton, is translated almost literally from a poem by the Abbé de Chaulieu, who died in 1720. "Every one must own," adds he, "that, in copying, Goldsmith wonderfully improved the original."
[6.] The village master.—The portrait here drawn of the village schoolmaster is from Goldsmith's own teacher, Thomas Byrne, with whom he was placed when six years old. "Byrne had been educated for a pedagogue," says Irving, "but had enlisted in the army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time, and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. At the return of peace, having no longer exercise for the sword, he resumed the ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy.
"There are certain whimsical traits in the character of Byrne, not given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of talking of his vagabond wanderings in foreign lands, and had brought with him from the wars a world of campaigning stories of which he was generally the hero, and which he would deal forth to his wondering scholars when he ought to have been teaching them their lessons. These travellers' tales had a powerful effect upon the vivid imagination of Goldsmith, and awakened an unconquerable passion for wandering and seeking adventure.
"Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly superstitious. He was deeply versed in the fairy superstitions which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as great a proficient in fairy lore."
noisy mansion. The old-time school-room was a noisy place, the pupils studying their lessons aloud, and but little care being taken to secure quietness at any time.
[7.] boding. Foreboding; seeing that which is about to happen. From A.-S. bodian, to announce, to foretell.
[8.] village. Villagers.
[9.] terms and tides. Times and seasons. presage. Foreknow. From Lat. pre, before, and sagio, to perceive.
[10.] gauge. Measure liquids. The humor in this and in some other expressions in these verses is too apparent to require comment.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
Oliver Goldsmith was born at Pallas, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November, 1728. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh and at Leyden. After travelling on foot through portions of Western Europe, he made his way to London, where he was in turn assistant to a chemist, usher in a school at Peckham, and literary hack for one of the leading monthly publications. He afterwards contributed many articles, both in prose and poetry, to the leading periodicals of the time. He wrote "The Traveller" in 1764, and "The Deserted Village" and The Vicar of Wakefield in 1770. He died in his chambers in Brick Court, London, April 4, 1774. For a full account of his life, read Macaulay's Essay on Oliver Goldsmith.
"The naturalness and ease of Goldsmith's poetry," says Edward Dowden, "are those of an accomplished craftsman. His verse, which flows towards the close of the period with such a gentle yet steady advance, is not less elaborated than that of Pope; and Goldsmith conceived his verse more in paragraphs than in couplets. His artless words were, each one, delicately chosen; his simple constructions were studiously sought." And Sir Walter Scott said of him: "It would be difficult to point out one among the English poets less likely to be excelled in his own style. Possessing much of Pope's versification without the monotonous structure of his lines; rising sometimes to the swell and fulness of Dryden, without his inflections; delicate and masterly in his descriptions; graceful in one of the greatest graces of poetry, its transitions; alike successful in his sportive or grave, his playful or melancholy mood; he may long bid defiance to the numerous competitors whom the friendship or flattery of the present age is so hastily arraying against him."
Other Poems to be Read: The Traveller; the rest of The Deserted Village; Retaliation.
References: Irving's Life of Goldsmith; Forster's Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith; Macaulay's Essay on Goldsmith; Thackeray's English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century; De Quincey's Eighteenth Century; Hazlitt's English Poets; Goldsmith (English Men of Letters), by William Black.
