yed, and spent the blaze
Of fiery youth, grey ash is all we find.
Perhaps we know the tree, of which the pile
Once formed a part, and oft beneath its shade
Have sported in our youth; or in quaint style
Have carved upon its rugged bark a name
Of which the memory doth alone remain
A memory doomed, alas! in turn to fade.

Bad enough as verse, the critic will say; refined, confined, find--what
poor rhymes are these! and he will think me wrong to draw these
frailties from their forgotten abode. But I like to think of the
solitary old man sitting by his wood fire in the old house, not brooding
bitterly on his frustrate life, but putting his quiet thoughts into the
form of a sonnet. The other is equally good--or bad, if the critic will
have it so:--

The clock had just struck five, and all was still
Within my house, when straight I open threw
With eager hand the casement dim with dew.
Oh, what a glorious flush of light did fill
That old staircase! and then and there did kill
All those black doubts that ever do renew
Their civil war with all that's good and true
Within our hearts, when body and mind are ill
From this slight incident I would infer
A cheerful truth, that men without demur,
In times of stress and doubt, throw open wide
The windows of their breast; nor stung by pride
In stifling darkness gloomily abide;
But bid the light flow in on either side.

A "slight incident" and a beautiful thought. But all I have so far said
about the little book is preliminary to what I wish to say about another
sonnet which must also be quoted. It is perhaps, as a sonnet, as ill
done as the others, but the subject of it specially attracted me, as it
happened to be one which was much in my mind during my week's stay at
Norton. That remote little village without a squire or any person
of means or education in or near it capable of feeling the slightest
interest in the people, except the parson, an old infirm man who was
never seen but once a week--how wanting in some essential thing it
appeared! It seemed to me that the one thing which might be done in
these small centres of rural life to brighten and beautify existence is
precisely the thing which is never done, also that what really is being
done is of doubtful value and sometimes actually harmful.

Leaving Norton one day I visited other small villages in the
neighbourhood and found they we