POEMS FOUNDED ON THE AFFECTIONS
'HESE Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live
A profitable life: some glance along, Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air, And they were butterflies to wheel about Long as the summer lasted: some, as wise, Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag, Pencil in hand and book upon the knee, Will look and scribble, scribble on and look, Until a man might travel twelve stout miles, Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn. But, for that moping Son of Idleness, Why can he tarry yonder ?—In our church-yard Is neither epitaph nor monument, Tombstone nor name-only the turf we tread And a few natural graves."
Thus spake the homely Priest of Ennerdale. It was a July evening; and he sate Upon the long stone-seat beneath the eaves Of his old cottage,-as it chanced, that day, Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone His wife sate near him, teasing matted wool,
While, from the twin cards toothed with glittering wire, He fed the spindle of his youngest child, Who, in the open air, with due accord Of busy hands and back-and-forward steps, Her large round wheel was turning.
In which the Parish Chapel stood alone, Girt round with a bare ring of mossy wall, While half an hour went by, the Priest had sent Many a long look of wonder: and at last, Risen from his seat, beside the snow-white ridge Of carded wool which the old man had piled He laid his implements with gentle care, Each in the other locked; and, down the path
That from his cottage to the church-yard led, He took his way, impatient to accost
The Stranger, whom he saw still lingering there.
'Twas one well known to him in former days, A Shepherd-lad; who ere his sixteenth year Had left that calling, tempted to entrust His expectations to the fickle winds And perilous waters; with the mariners A fellow-mariner ;-and so had fared
Through twenty seasons; but he had been reared Among the mountains, and he in his heart Was half a shepherd on the stormy seas. Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds
Of caves and trees:—and, when the regular wind Between the tropics filled the steady sail,
And blew with the same breath through days and weeks, Lengthening invisibly its weary line
Along the cloudless Main, he, in those hours
Of tiresome indolence, would often hang
Over the vessel's side, and gaze and gaze ;
And, while the broad blue wave and sparkling foam Flashed round him images and hues that wrought In union with the employment of his heart, He, thus by feverish passion overcome, Even with the organs of his bodily eye, Below him, in the bosom of the deep,
Saw mountains; saw the forms of sheep that grazed On verdant hills-with dwellings among trees, And shepherds clad in the same country grey Which he himself had worn.1
From perils manifold, with some small wealth, Acquired by traffic 'mid the Indian Isles, To his paternal home he is returned, With a determined purpose to resume The life he had lived there; both for the sake Of many darling pleasures, and the love Which to an only brother he has borne In all his hardships, since that happy time When, whether it blew foul or fair, they two Were brother-shepherds on their native hills.
-They were the last of all their race: and now,
1 This description of the Calenture is sketched from an imperfect recollection of an admirable one in prose, by Mr. Gilbert, author of The Hurricane.
When Leonard had approached his home, his heart Failed in him; and, not venturing to enquire Tidings of one so long and dearly loved, He to the solitary church-yard turned; That, as he knew in what particular spot His family were laid, he thence might learn If still his Brother lived, or to the file Another grave was added.-He had found Another grave,-near which a full half-hour He had remained; but, as he gazed, there grew Such a confusion in his memory,
That he began to doubt; and even to hope That he had seen this heap of turf before,— That it was not another grave; but one He had forgotten. He had lost his path, As up the vale, that afternoon, he walked
Through fields which once had been well known to
And oh what joy this recollection now
Sent to his heart! he lifted
And, looking round, imagined that he saw
Strange alteration wrought on every side Among the woods and fields, and that the rocks, And everlasting hills themselves were changed.
By this the Priest, who down the field had come, Unseen by Leonard, at the church-yard gate Stopped short, and thence, at leisure, limb by limb Perused him with a gay complacency.
Ay, thought the Vicar, smiling to himself,
'Tis one of those who needs must leave the path Of the world's business to go wild alone: His arms have a perpetual holiday; The happy man will creep about the fields, Following his fancies by the hour, to bring Tears down his cheek, or solitary smiles Into his face, until the setting sun Write fool upon his forehead.-Planted thus Beneath a shed that over-arched the gate Of this rude church-yard, till the stars appeared The good Man might have communed with himself, But that the Stranger, who had left the grave, Approached; he recognised the Priest at once, And, after greetings interchanged, and given By Leonard to the Vicar as to one Unknown to him, this dialogue ensued. LEONARD. You live, Sir, in these dales, a quiet life:
Your years make up one peaceful family; And who would grieve and fret, if, welcome come And welcome gone, they are so like each other, They cannot be remembered? Scarce a funeral Comes to this church-yard once in eighteen months; And yet, some changes must take place among you: And you, who dwell here, even among these rocks, Can trace the finger of mortality,
And see, that with our threescore years and ten We are not all that perish.-I remember, (For many years ago I passed this road) There was a foot-way all along the fields
By the brook-side-'tis gone-and that dark cleft! To me it does not seem to wear the face Which then it had!
Nay, Sir, for aught I know,
That chasm is much the sameLEONARD.
PRIEST. Ay, there, indeed, your memory is a friend That does not play you false.-On that tall pike (It is the loneliest place of all these hills) There were two springs which bubbled side by side, As if they had been made that they might be Companions for each other: the huge crag Was rent with lightning—one hath disappeared; The other, left behind, is flowing still. For accidents and changes such as these, We want not store of them ;-a water-spout Will bring down half a mountain; what a feast For folks that wander up and down like you, To see an acre's breadth of that wide cliff One roaring cataract! a sharp May-storm Will come with loads of January snow, And in one night send twenty score of sheep To feed the ravens ; or a shepherd dies By some untoward death among the rocks: The ice breaks up and sweeps away a bridge; A wood is felled :-and then for our own homes! A child is born or christened, a field ploughed, A daughter sent to service, a web spun, The old house-clock is decked with a new face; And hence, so far from wanting facts or dates To chronicle the time, we all have here
A pair of diaries,—one serving, Sir, For the whole dale, and one for each fire-side.— Yours was a stranger's judgment: for historians, Commend me to these valleys!
LEONARD. Yet your church-yard Seems, if such freedom may be used with you, To say that you are heedless of the past:
An orphan could not find his mother's grave: Here's neither head nor foot-stone, plate of brass, Cross-bones nor skull,-type of our earthly state Nor emblem of our hopes: the dead man's home Is but a fellow to that pasture-field.
PRIEST. Why, there, Sir, is a thought that's new to me! The stone-cutters, 'tis true, might beg their bread If every English church-yard were like ours; Yet your conclusion wanders from the truth: We have no need of names and epitaphs; We talk about the dead by our fire-sides. And then, for our immortal part! we want No symbols, Sir, to tell us that plain tale : The thought of death sits easy on the man
Who has been born and dies among the mountains.
LEONARD. Your Dalesmen, then, do in each other's thoughts Possess a kind of second life: no doubt
You, Sir, could help me to the history
Of half these graves?
For eight-score winters past,
With what I've witnessed, and with what I've heard, Perhaps I might; and, on a winter-evening,
If you were seated at my chimney's nook, By turning o'er these hillocks one by one,
We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round; Yet all in the broad highway of the world. Now there's a grave-your foot is half upon it,— It looks just like the rest; and yet that man Died broken-hearted.
'Tis a common case.
We'll take another: who is he that lies
Beneath yon ridge, the last of those three graves?
It touches on that piece of native rock Left in the church-yard wall.
He had as white a head and fresh a cheek As ever were produced by youth and age Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore. Through five long generations had the heart. Of Walter's forefathers o'erflowed the bounds Of their inheritance, that single cottage--- You see it yonder! and those few green fields. They toiled and wrought, and still, from sire to son, Each struggled, and each yielded as before
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