Coleridge.
And for the cordial, substantial, heart-filling contentment which is gathered from the quietness of rural life, hear what Sir Henry Wotton, a most accomplished man, who had seen much of court life, both at home and abroad, says,
Would the world now adopt me for her heir;
Would beauty’s queen entitle me the fair;
Fame speak me Fortune’s minion; could I vie
Angels[31] with India; with a speaking eye,
Command bare heads, bowed knees; strike justice dumb.
As well as blind and lame; or give a tongue
To stones by epitaphs; be called “great master”
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster—
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives;
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign,
Than ever fortune would have made them mine;
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
Welcome pure thoughts! welcome ye silent groves!
These guests, these courts my soul most dearly loves.
Now the winged people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring;
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet virtue’s face.
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, no pale-faced fears;
Then here I’ll sit, and sigh my hot love’s folly,
And learn to affect a holy melancholy:
And if contentment be a stranger then,
I’ll ne’er look for it but in heaven again.
[31] Piece of money value ten shillings.
Such are the pleasures that lie in the path of the lover of the country; pleasures like the blessings of the Gospel, to be had without money, and without price. There are many, no doubt, who will deem them dull and insignificant; but the peace which they bring “passeth understanding,” and we can make a triumphant appeal from the frivolous and the dissipated, to the wise and noble of every country and age.
CHAPTER XVI.
LINGERING CUSTOMS.
Many precious rites
And customs of our rural ancestry
Are gone, or stealing from us.
Wordsworth.