Nearly every time I go exploring in the vast, uncharted realms of Arthur Quiller-Couch's anthologies, I find some heretofore overlooked gem. This summer as I was working my way through his Oxford Book of Victorian Verse, I ran across this wonderful poem by Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802-1839).
I don't think it is too much to say that these thirteen stanzas capture almost perfectly my own vision of what a parish pastor's life and ministry ought to be. There is so much to learn from here. I absolutely love it:
Some years ago, ere
time and taste
Had
turn’d our parish topsy-turvy,
When
Darnel Park was Darnel Waste,
And
roads as little known as scurvy,
The
man who lost his way between
St.
Mary’s Hill and Sandy Thicket
Was
always shown across the green,
And
guided to the parson’s wicket.
Back
flew the bolt of lissom lath;
Fair
Margaret, in her tidy kirtle,
Led
the lorn traveller up the path
Through
clean-clipp’d rows of box and myrtle;
And
Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray,
Upon
the parlor steps collected,
Wagg’d
all their tails, and seem’d to say,
“Our
master knows you; you ’re expected.”
Up
rose the reverend Doctor Brown,
Up
rose the doctor’s “winsome marrow;”
The
lady laid her knitting down,
Her
husband clasp’d his ponderous Barrow.
Whate’er
the stranger’s caste or creed,
Pundit
or papist, saint or sinner,
He
found a stable for his steed,
And
welcome for himself, and dinner.
If,
when he reach’d his journey’s end,
And
warm’d himself in court or college,
He had
not gain’d an honest friend,
And
twenty curious scraps of knowledge;
If he
departed as he came,
With
no new light on love or liquor,—
Good sooth, the traveller was to blame,
And
not the vicarage, nor the vicar.
His
talk was like a stream which runs
With
rapid change from rocks to roses;
It
slipp’d from politics to puns;
It
pass’d from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning
with the laws which keep
The
planets in their radiant courses,
And
ending with some precept deep
For
dressing eels or shoeing horses.
He was
a shrewd and sound divine,
Of
loud dissent the mortal terror;
And
when, by dint of page and line,
He
’stablish’d truth or startled error,
The
Baptist found him far too deep,
The
Deist sigh’d with saving sorrow,
And
the lean Levite went to sleep
And
dream’d of tasting pork to-morrow.
His
sermon never said or show’d
That
earth is foul, that heaven is gracious,
Without
refreshment on the road
From
Jerome, or from Athanasius;
And
sure a righteous zeal inspir’d
The
hand and head that penn’d and plann’d them,
For all who understood admir’d,
And some who did not understand them.
He
wrote too, in a quiet way,
Small
treatises, and smaller verses,
And
sage remarks on chalk and clay,
And
hints to noble lords and nurses;
True
histories of last year’s ghost;
Lines
to a ringlet or a turban;
And
trifles to the Morning Post,
And
nothings for Sylvanus Urban.
He did
not think all mischief fair,
Although
he had a knack of joking;
He did
not make himself a bear,
Although
he had a taste for smoking;
And
when religious sects ran mad,
He
held, in spite of all his learning,
That
if a man’s belief is bad,
It
will not be improv’d by burning.
And he
was king, and lov’d to sit
In
the low hut or garnish’d cottage,
And
praise the farmer’s homely wit,
And
share the widow’s homelier pottage.
At his
approach complaint grew mild,
And
when his hand unbarr’d the shutter
The
clammy lips of fever smil’d
The
welcome which they could not utter.
He
always had a tale for me
Of
Julius Cæsar or of Venus;
From
him I learn’d the rule of three,
Cat’s-cradle,
leap-frog, and Quæ genus.
I used
to singe his powder’d wig,
To steal the staff he put such trust in,
And
make the puppy dance a jig
When
he began to quote Augustine.
Alack,
the change! In vain I look
For
haunts in which my boyhood trifled;
The
level lawn, the trickling brook,
The
trees I climb’d, the beds I rifled.
The
church is larger than before,
You
reach it by a carriage entry:
It
holds three hundred people more,
And
pews are fitted for the gentry.
Sit in
the vicar’s seat: you ’ll hear
The
doctrine of a gentle Johnian,
Whose
hand is white, whose voice is clear,
Whose
tone is very Ciceronian.
Where
is the old man laid? Look down,
And
construe on the slab before you:
“Hic
jacet Gulielmus Brown,
Vir nullâ non donandus lauro.”
