# Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/To Southey

TO SOUTHEY.
I thought to see thee in thy lake-girt home,
 Thou of creative soul! I thought with thee
Amid thy mountain solitudes to roam,
 And hear the voice, whose echoes wild and free
Had strangely thrilled me, when my life was new,
 With old romantic tales of wondrous lore;
But ah! they told me that thy mind withdrew
 Into its mystic cell,—nor evermore
Sate on the lip, in fond, familiar word,
 Nor through the speaking eye her love repaid,
Whose heart for thee with ceaseless care is stirred,
 Both night and day; upon the willow shade
Her sweet harp hung. They told me, and I wept,
As on my pilgrim way o'er England's vales I kept.
August 28, 1840.
From Wordsworth, while at Rydal-Mount, I received the first information of Southey's melancholy ​state of health and intellect, and resigned, though reluctantly, my intention of going to Keswick to see him. It was with deep sorrow that I heard how dark a cloud hung over that strong and creative genius, which has long communicated such delight on both sides of the Atlantic, and whose varied and versatile powers seem well characterized in a few of his own sweet lines, as
"The stream's perpetual flow,
That with its shadows, and its glancing lights,
Dimples, and threadlike motions infinite,
Forever varying, and yet still the same,
Like time towards Eternity, glides by."
A letter, the ensuing spring, from his wife, so widely known by her name of Caroline Bowles, as the writer of some of the truest and most pathetic poetry in our language, made me still more regret, that the short time which then remained to me in England rendered it impossible to visit Greta-Hall. This, and her entire self- devotedness to her suffering husband, induced me to turn with new interest to her volumes, of which an accomplished critic has said, that "no purer models of genuine home-feeling and language could be placed in the hands of a foreigner." The deep pathos of her "Pauper's Death-Bed" must be remembered by all who have read it; and how simple ​and touching are the following lines, from one of her latest poems.
"My father loved the patient angler's art,
And many a summer's day, from early morn
To latest evening, by some streamlet's side
We two have tarried, strange companionship;
A sad and silent man, and joyous child.
Yet were those days, as I recall them now,
Supremely happy. Silent though he was,
My father's eyes were often on his child,
Tenderly eloquent, and his few words
Were kind and gentle. Never angry tone
Repulsed me, if I broke upon his thoughts
With childish question.
 But I learned at last,
Intuitively learned to hold my peace,
When the dark hour was on him, and deep sighs
Spoke the perturbed spirit; only then
I crept a little closer to his side,
And stole my hand in his, or on his arm
Laid my cheek softly; till the simple wile
Won on his sad abstraction, and he turned
With a faint smile and sighed and shook his head,
Stooping toward me; so I reached at last
Mine arm about his neck and clasped it close,
Printing his pale brow with a silent kiss."
In this exquisite picture may we not see the germ ​of the same tenderness, which now watches night and day in the darkened cell, where a glorious mind has withdrawn from its former intercourse with the living? I trust to be forgiven for selecting from one of her recent letters, a few passages for the friends, who in this western world have admired, in almost every department of literature, the inventive genius of Dr. Southey, his comprehensive learning, and his astonishing industry.
"You desire to be remembered to him who sang, 'of Thalaba, the wild, and wonderous tale.' Alas, my friend, the dull cold ear of death is not more insensible than his, my dearest husband's, to all communication from the world without. Scarcely can I keep hold of the last poor comfort of believing that he still knows me. This almost complete unconsciousness has not been of more than six months' standing, though more than two years have elapsed, since he has written even his name. After the death of his first wife, the "Edith" of his first love, who was for several years insane, his health was terribly shaken. Yet for the greater part of a year that he spent with me, in Hampshire, my former home, it seemed perfectly reëstablished, and he used to say, "It had surely pleased God, that the last years of his life should be happy." But the Almighty will was otherwise. The little cloud soon appeared, which was in no long time to overshadow all. In the blackness of its shadow ​we still live, and shall pass from under it only through the portals of the grave.
"The last three years have done on me the work of twenty. The one, sole business of my life is that, which I verily believe keeps the life in me, the guardianship of my dear, helpless, unconscious husband."
The heavy calamity which has befallen one of the most gifted minds of our age, and the enduring courage of conjugal love which ministers to it, awaken deep sympathy here, as well as in Europe. They recall and render applicable a few affecting lines, in that noble epic poem of "Roderick," one of the most imperishable monuments of his genius, over whose silent and stricken harp we mourn.
"God hath upheld her," the old man replied; "She bears this last, and heaviest of her griefs
Most patiently, as one who finds in Heaven
A comfort, which the world can neither give
Nor take away."