He, like an osier, was of pliant kind,
Erect by nature, but to bend inclined;
Not like a creeper falling to the ground,
Or meanly catching on the neighbours round: 
Careless was he of surplice, hood, and band, —
And kindly took them as they came to hand,
Nor, like the doctor, wore a world of hat,
As if he sought for dignity in that: 
He talk’d, he gave, but not with cautious rules;
Nor turn’d from gipsies, vagabonds, or fools;
It was his nature, but they thought it whim,
And so our beaux and beauties turn’d from him. 
Of questions, much he wrote, profound and dark, —
How spake the serpent, and where stopp’d the ark;
From what far land the queen of Sheba came;
Who Salem’s Priest, and what his father’s name;
He made the Song of Songs its mysteries yield,
And Revelations to the world reveal’d. 
He sleeps i’ the aisle,—­but not a stone records
His name or fame, his actions or his words: 
And truth, your reverence, when I look around,
And mark the tombs in our sepulchral ground
(Though dare I not of one man’s hope to doubt),
I’d join the party who repose without. 
   “Next came a Youth from Cambridge, and in truth
He was a sober and a comely youth;
He blush’d in meekness as a modest man,
And gain’d attention ere his task began;
When preaching, seldom ventured on reproof,
But touch’d his neighbours tenderly enough. 
Him, in his youth, a clamorous sect assail’d,
Advised and censured, flatter’d,—­and prevail’d.-
Then did he much his sober hearers vex,
Confound the simple, and the sad perplex;
To a new style his reverence rashly took;
Loud grew his voice, to threat’ning swell’d his look;
Above, below, on either side, he gazed,
Amazing all, and most himself amazed: 
No more he read his preachments pure and plain,
But launch’d outright, and rose and sank again: 
At times he smiled in scorn, at times he wept,
And such sad coil with words of vengeance kept,
That our blest sleepers started as they slept. 
   ‘Conviction comes like light’ning,’ he would cry;
’In vain you seek it, and in vain you fly;
’Tis like the rushing of the mighty wind,
Unseen its progress, but its power you find;
It strikes the child ere yet its reason wakes;
His reason fled, the ancient sire it shakes;
The proud, learn’d man, and him who loves to know
How and from whence those gusts of grace will blow,
It shuns,—­but sinners in their way impedes,
And sots and harlots visits in their deeds: 
Of faith and penance it supplies the place;
Assures the vilest that they live by grace,
And, without running, makes them win the race.’ 
   “Such was the doctrine our young prophet taught;
And here conviction, there confusion wrought;
When his thin cheek assumed a deadly hue,
And all the rose to one small spot withdrew,
They call’d it hectic; ’twas a fiery flush,