Crabbe's successor before Crabbe and his sons had quitted the house!

For other reasons, perhaps, Crabbe prepared to leave his two livings
with a sense of relief. His wife's death had cast a permanent shadow
over the landscape. The neighbouring gentry were kindly disposed, but
probably not wholly sympathetic. It is clear that there was a certain
rusticity about Crabbe; and his politics, such as they were, had been
formed in a different school from that of the county families. A busy
country town was likely to furnish interests and distractions of a
different kind. But before finally quitting the neighbourhood he visited
a sister at Aldeburgh, and, his son writes, 'one day was given to a
solitary ramble among the scenery of bygone years--Parham and the woods
of Glemham, then in the first blossom of May. He did not return until
night; and in his note-book I find the following brief record of this
mournful visit:

"Yes, I behold again the place,
The seat of joy, the source of pain;
It brings in view the form and face
That I must never see again.

The night-bird's song that sweetly floats
On this soft gloom--this balmy air--
Brings to the mind her sweeter notes
That I again must never hear.

Lo! yonder shines that window's light,
My guide, my token, heretofore;
And now again it shines as bright,
When those dear eyes can shine no more.