or
insidious, "and to the end persisting safe arrived."

Many men of genius have died without their fame, and for their fate we
may surely mourn without calumniating our kind. It was their lot to die.
Such was the will of God. Many such have come and gone, ere they knew
themselves what they were; their brothers and sisters and friends knew
it not; knew it not their fathers and their mothers; nor the village
maidens on whose bosoms they laid their dying heads. Many, conscious of
the divine flame, and visited by mysterious stirrings that would not let
them rest, have like vernal wildflowers withered, or been cut down like
young trees in the season of leaf and blossom. Of this our mortal life
what are these but beautiful evanishings! Such was our young Scottish
Poet, Michael Bruce--a fine scholar, who taught a little wayside school,
and died, a mere lad, of consumption. Loch Leven Castle, where Mary
Stuart was imprisoned, looks not more melancholy among the dim waters
for her than for its own Poet's sake! The linnet, in its joy among the
yellow broom, sings not more sweetly than did he in his sadness, sitting
beside his unopened grave, "one song that will not die," though the
dirge but draw now and then a tear from some simple heart.

"Now spring returns--but not to me returns
The vernal joy my better years have known;
Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns,
And all the joys of life with health are flown."

To young Genius to die is often a great gain. The green leaf was almost
hidden in blossoms, and the tree put forth beautiful promise. Cold winds
blew, and clouds intercepted the sunshine; but it felt the dews of
heaven, and kept flourishing fair even in the moonlight, deriving sweet
sustenance from the stars. But would all those blossoms have been fruit?
Many would have formed, but more perhaps dropt in unperceived decay, and
the tree which "all eyes that looked on loved," might not have been the
pride of the garden. Death could not permit the chance of such
disappointment, stepped kindly in, and left the spring-dream "sweet but
mournful to the soul," among its half-fancied memories. Such was the
fate, perhaps, of Henry Kirke White. His fine moral and intellectual
being was not left to pine away neglected; and if, in gratitude and
ambition, twin-births in that noble heart, he laid down his life for
sake of the lore he loved, let us lament the dead with no passionate
ejaculations over injustice