The Borough | Page 4

find the Muse in happier style,?And we may sometimes sigh and sometimes smile.
LETTER II.
. . . . . . . . Festinat enim decurrere velox?Flosculus angustae miseraeque brevissima vitae?Portio! dum bibimus, dum serta, unguenta, puellas?Poscimus, obrepit non intellecta senectus.
JUVENAL, Satires
And when at last thy Love shall die,?Wilt thou receive his parting breath??Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh,?And cheer with smiles the bed of death?
PERCY.

THE CHURCH.
Several Meanings of the word Church--The Building so called, here intended--Its Antiquity and Grandeur--Columns and Aisles--The Tower: the Stains made by Time compared with the mock antiquity of the Artist--Progress of Vegetation on such Buildings--Bells--Tombs: one in decay--Mural Monuments, and the Nature of their Inscriptions--An Instance in a departed Burgess--Churchyard Graves--Mourners for the Dead--A Story of a betrothed Pair in humble Life, and Effects of Grief in the Survivor.
"WHAT is a Church?"--Let Truth and Reason speak,?They would reply, "The faithful, pure, and meek;?From Christian folds, the one selected race,?Of all professions, and in every place."?"What is a Church?"--"A flock," our Vicar cries,?"Whom bishops govern and whom priests advise;?Wherein are various states and due degrees,?The Bench for honour, and the Stall for ease;?That ease be mine, which, after all his cares,?The pious, peaceful prebendary shares."?"What is a Church?"--Our honest Sexton tells,?"'Tis a tall building, with a tower and bells;?Where priest and clerk with joint exertion strive?To keep the ardour af their flock alive;?That, by its periods eloquent and grave;?This, by responses, and a well-set stave:?These for the living; but when life be fled,?I toll myself the requiem for the dead."
'Tis to this Church I call thee, and that place?Where slept our fathers when they'd run their race:?We too shall rest, and then our children keep?Their road in life, and then, forgotten, sleep;?Meanwhile the building slowly falls away,?And, like the builders, will in time decay.
The old Foundation--but it is not clear?When it was laid--you care not for the year;?On this, as parts decayed by time and storms,?Arose these various disproportion'd forms;?Yet Gothic all--the learn'd who visit us?(And our small wonders) have decided thus:-?"Yon noble Gothic arch," "That Gothic door;"?So have they said; of proof you'll need no more.
Here large plain columns rise in solemn style,?You'd love the gloom they make in either aisle;?When the sun's rays, enfeebled as they pass?(And shorn of splendour) through the storied glass,?Faintly display the figures on the floor,?Which pleased distinctly in their place before.
But ere you enter, yon bold tower survey,?Tall and entire, and venerably gray,?For time has soften'd what was harsh when new,?And now the stains are all of sober hue;?The living stains which Nature's hand alone,?Profuse of life, pours forth upon the stone:?For ever growing; where the common eye?Can but the bare and rocky bed descry;?There Science loves to trace her tribes minute,?The juiceless foliage, and the tasteless fruit;?There she perceives them round the surface creep,?And while they meet their due distinction keep;?Mix'd but not blended; each its name retains,?And these are Nature's ever-during stains.
And wouldst thou, Artist! with thy tints and brush,?Form shades like these? Pretender, where thy blush??In three short hours shall thy presuming hand?Th' effect of three slow centuries command??Thou may'st thy various greens and grays contrive;?They are not Lichens, nor like ought alive;-?But yet proceed, and when thy tints are lost,?Fled in the shower, or crumbled by the frost;?When all thy work is done away as clean?As if thou never spread'st thy gray and green;?Then may'st thou see how Nature's work is done,?How slowly true she lays her colours on;?When her least speck upon the hardest flint?Has mark and form, and is a living tint;?And so embodied with the rock, that few?Can the small germ upon the substance view.
Seeds, to our eyes invisible, will find?On the rude rock the bed that fits their kind;?There, in the rugged soil, they safely dwell,?Till showers and snows the subtle atoms swell,?And spread th' enduring foliage;--then we trace?The freckled flower upon the flinty base;?These all increase, till in unnoticed years?The stony tower as gray with age appears;?With coats of vegetation, thinly spread,?Coat above coat, the living on the dead;?These then dissolve to dust, and make a way?For bolder foliage, nursed by their decay:?The long-enduring Ferns in time will all?Die and depose their dust upon the wall;?Where the wing'd seed may rest, till many a flower?Show Flora's triumph o'er the falling tower.
But ours yet stands, and has its Bells renown'd?For size magnificent and solemn sound;?Each has its motto: some contrived to tell,?In monkish rhyme, the uses of a bell;?Such wond'rous good, as few conceive could spring?From ten loud coppers when their clampers swing.
Enter'd the Church--we to a tomb proceed,?Whose names and titles few attempt to read;?Old English letters, and those half pick'd out,?Leave us, unskilful readers, much in doubt;?Our sons shall see its more degraded state;?The tomb of grandeur hastens to its fate;?That marble arch, our sexton's favourite show,?With all those ruff'd