Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2)Howitt, William
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Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Howitt, William
Literary landmarks -- Great Britain; Poets, English -- Homes and haunts
"Ages rolled by; the turf perennial bloomed
O'er the lorn relics of those saints entombed:
No miracle proclaimed their power divine,
No kings adorned, no pilgrims kissed their shrine;
Cold, and forgotten, in their grave they slept:
But God remembered them:--their Father kept
A faithful remnant; o'er their native clime
His Spirit moved in his appointed time;
The race revived at his almighty breath,
A seed to serve him from the dust of death.
'Go forth, my sons, through heathen realms proclaim
Mercy to sinners in a Savior's name.'
Thus spoke the Lord; they heard and they obeyed.
--Greenland lay wrapped in nature's heaviest shade;
Thither the ensign of the cross they bore;
The gaunt barbarians met them on the shore
With joy and wonder, hailing from afar,
Through polar storms, the light of Jacob's star."
The internal arrangements of the establishment are just the same as at
all their settlements. The chapel, very much like a Friends' meeting,
only having an organ; and the bedrooms of the children as large,
ventilated from the roof, and furnished with the same rows of single,
curtainless beds, with white coverlets, reminding you of the
sleeping-rooms of a nunnery.
My reception, though I took no introduction, was most kind and
cordial. The brethren and sisters were well acquainted with the
writings of both Mrs. Howitt and myself, and, of course, with our
visit to Herrnhut. They have here about seventy boys and fifty girls,
as pupils, who had just returned from the midsummer holydays, and
were, many of them, very busy in their gardens. As I heard their merry
voices, and caught the glance of their bright, eager eyes among the
trees, I wondered how many would look back hereafter to this quiet,
sweet place, and exclaim, with the poet who first met the muse here--
"Days of my childhood, hail!
Whose gentle spirits wandering here,
Down in the visionary vale
Before mine eyes appear,
Benignly pensive, beautifully pale:
O days forever fled, forever dear,
Days of my childhood, hail!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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