above all, for her delicate and irreproachable conduct during her long separation from an unfeeling husband, whom she had been led to marry from the romantic notions of inexperienced youth. Upon this husband I never heard her cast the least reproach, nor did I ever hear her even name him, though she did not wholly forbear to touch upon her domestic position; but never so that any fault could be found with her manner of adverting to it. --I.F.] This first appeared in _The Athenæum_, December 12, 1835, and in the edition of 1837 it was included among the “Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces.”--ED. When first, descending from the moorlands, I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide Along a bare and open valley, The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.[36] When last along its banks I wandered, 5 Through groves that had begun to shed Their golden leaves upon the pathways, My steps the Border-minstrel led. The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer,[37] ’Mid mouldering ruins low he lies;[38] 10 And death upon the braes of Yarrow, Has closed the Shepherd-poet’s eyes:[39] Nor has the rolling year twice measured, From sign to sign, its stedfast course, Since every mortal power of Coleridge 15 Was frozen at its marvellous source;[40] The rapt One, of the godlike forehead,[41] The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth: And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle, Has vanished from his lonely hearth.[42] 20 Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,[43] Or waves that own no curbing hand, How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land! Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber[44] 25 Were earlier raised, remain to hear A timid voice, that asks in whispers, “Who next will drop and disappear?” Our haughty life is crowned with darkness, Like London with its own black wreath, 30 On which with thee, O Crabbe! forth-looking, I gazed from Hampstead’s breezy heath. As if but yesterday departed, Thou too art gone before;[45] but why, O’er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered, 35 Should frail survivors heave a sigh? Mourn rather for that holy Spirit, Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep; For Her who, ere her summer faded, Has sunk into a breathless sleep.[46] 40 No more of old romantic sorrows, For slaughtered Youth or love-lorn Maid! With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten, And Ettrick mourns with her their Poet dead.[47] [36] Compare _Yarrow Visited_ (September, 1814), vol. vi. p. 35.--ED. [37] Compare _Yarrow Revisited_ (1831), vol. vii. p. 278.--ED. [38] Scott died at Abbotsford, on the 21st September 1832, and was buried in Dryburgh Abbey.--ED.