O Friend! few happier moments have been mine Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe So dreaded, so abhorred. [Y] The day deserves A separate record. Over the smooth sands Of Leven's ample estuary lay 515 My journey, and beneath a genial sun, With distant prospect among gleams of sky And clouds, and intermingling mountain tops, In one inseparable glory clad, Creatures of one ethereal substance met 520 In consistory, like a diadem Or crown of burning seraphs as they sit In the empyrean. Underneath that pomp Celestial, lay unseen the pastoral vales Among whose happy fields I had grown up 525 From childhood. On the fulgent spectacle, That neither passed away nor changed, I gazed Enrapt; but brightest things are wont to draw Sad opposites out of the inner heart, As even their pensive influence drew from mine. 530 How could it otherwise? for not in vain That very morning had I turned aside To seek the ground where, 'mid a throng of graves, An honoured teacher of my youth was laid, [Z] And on the stone were graven by his desire 535 Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray. [a] This faithful guide, speaking from his death-bed, Added no farewell to his parting counsel, But said to me, "My head will soon lie low;" And when I saw the turf that covered him, 540 After the lapse of full eight years, [b] those words, With sound of voice and countenance of the Man, Came back upon me, so that some few tears Fell from me in my own despite. But now I thought, still traversing that widespread plain, 545 With tender pleasure of the verses graven Upon his tombstone, whispering to myself: He loved the Poets, and, if now alive, Would have loved me, as one not destitute Of promise, nor belying the kind hope 550 That he had formed, when I, at his command, Began to spin, with toil, my earliest songs. [c]