Gents Mag 1849 part 1 p.379
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Gentleman's Magazine 1849 part 1 p.379
"Sacred to the memory of Robert Southey, whose mortal remains are interred in the adjoining churchyard. He was born at Bristol, August XII, M.DCC.LXXIV, and died, after a residence of nearly XL years, at Greta Hall, in this parish, March XXI, M.DCCC.XLIII. This monument was erected by friends of Robert Southey." At the east end of the tomb are the following lines from the muse of Wordsworth, his friend in life, and successor to the crown of bays, who, with his son-in-law, Mr. Quillinan, stood in sorrow by the grave of their brother poet in the north side of the cemetery. Ye hills and vales, whose beauty hither drew The poet's steps, and fixed him here, on you His eyes have closed! And ye, loved books, no more Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore, To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown Adding immortal labours of his own. Whether he traced historic truth with zeal, For the State's guidance, or the Church's weal, Or Fancy, disciplined by studious art, Informed his pen, or wisdom of the heart, Or judgments sanctioned in the patriot's mind By reverence for the rights of all mankind, Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast Could private feelings find a holier nest. His joys, his griefs, have vanished as a cloud From Skiddaw's top, but he to heaven was vowed. During the celebration of that portion of the funeral service which is appointed to be read at the grave one of those trivial incidents occured which fall with such creative effect upon a feeling and poetic mind. It was wild and dreary weather in the early spring, before the trees had yet ventured to shew their tender leaflets, or the heather on the tall fells to protrude its first green tufts above their crests of snow. All was bleak, and chill, and desolate, as the hearts of the mourners who drooped in sadness above the minstrel's bier. The day, both before and after the obsequies, was full of gloom and tempest, yet, during that part of the solemn rites alluded to, the storm seemed suddenly to lull, and die away in sobs of fitful quietude. The rain ceased to beat, the clouds to threaten, and a deep stillness fell over the whole scene. A cheering ray of sunshine struggled through the the murky atmosphere, and two small birds perched upon a tree which then overhung the retired corner selected for the last house of mortality, unscared by the presence of the sorrowing train, warbled with tiny pipe their "wood-notes wild." The requiem of genius thus chanted by those "blossoms of the air," as some sweet bard has so poetically called them in his own melodious strain, was a fact every way too graceful in sentiment for the imagination of a poet to overlook, and it consequently gave occasion to some verses by Mr. Quillinan, which, it is to be regretted, the limits assigned to this paper preclude introducing here. When "all the work that had entered into the heart to make for the house of the Lord was so ended," the church, displaying more than the the beauty of its early days, was rendered not only worthy to rank amongst the most splendid restored monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity in Cumberland, but a more suitable temple for the public worship of Him who inhabiteth eternity, than the dilapidated structure from which it has arisen. Having been in all things completed, and rendered a lasting memorial of the zeal and piety of its restorer, a plate of brass, commemorative of the under- |
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