And thither, when the summer days were long,
Sir Walter led his wondering Paramour;
And with the dancers and the minstrel's song
Made merriment within that pleasant bower.

The Knight, Sir Walter, died in course of time,
And his bones lie in his paternal vale.

But there is matter for a second rhyme,
And I to this would add another tale.

PART SECOND.

THE moving accident is not my trade;
To freeze the blood I have no ready arts:
'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade,
To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts.

As I from Hawes to Richmond did repair,
It chanced that I saw standing in a dell
Three aspens at three corners of a square;
And one, not four yards distant, near a well.

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What this imported I could ill divine:

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And, pulling now the rein my horse to stop,

I saw three pillars standing in a line, —
The last stone-pillar on a dark hill-top.

The trees were grey, with neither arms nor head;
Half wasted the square mound of tawny green;
So that you just might say, as then I said,
"Here in old time the hand of man hath been."

I looked upon the hill both far and near,
More doleful place did never eye survey;
It seemed as if the spring-time came not here,
And Nature here were willing to decay.

I stood in various thoughts and fancies lost,
When one, who was in shepherd's garb attired,
Came up the hollow: him did I accost,

And what this place might be I then inquired.

The shepherd stopped, and that same story told
Which in my former rhyme I have rehearsed.
"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old!
But something ails it now: the spot is curst.

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"You see these lifeless stumps of aspen wood Some say that they are beeches, others elms

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These were the bower; and here a mansion stood,
The finest palace of a hundred realms!

"The arbour does its own condition tell;

You see the stones, the fountain, and the stream;

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But as to the great Lodge! you might as well
Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.

'There's neither dog nor heifer, horse nor sheep,
Will wet his lips within that cup of stone;
And oftentimes, when all are fast asleep,

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This water doth send forth a dolorous groan.

e Some say that here a murder has been done,
And blood cries out for blood: but, for my part,
I've guessed, when I've been sitting in the sun,
That it was all for that unhappy Hart.

"What thoughts must through the creature's brain have passed!

Even from the topmost stone, upon the steep,

Are but three bounds and look, Sir, at this last

O Master! it has been a cruel leap.

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For thirteen hours he ran a desperate race;
And in my simple mind we cannot tell

What cause the Hart might have to love this place,
And come and make his deathbed near the well.

"Here on the grass perhaps asleep he sank,
Lulled by the fountain in the summer-tide;
This water was perhaps the first he drank
When he had wandered from his mother's side.

"In April here beneath the flowering thorn
He heard the birds their morning carols sing;
And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born
Not half a furlong from that self-same spring.

"Now, here is neither grass nor pleasant shade ;
The sun on drearier hollow never shone;
So will it be, as I have often said,

Till trees, and stones, and fountain, all are gone."

"Grey-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well;
Small difference lies between thy creed and mine :
This Beast not unobserved by Nature fell;
His death was mourned by sympathy divine.

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"The Being, that is in the clouds and air,
That is in the green leaves among the groves,
Maintains a deep and reverential care
For the unoffending creatures whom he loves.

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"The pleasure-house is dust:- behind, before,
This is no common waste, no common gloom;
But Nature, in due course of time, once more
Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom.

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She leaves these objects to a slow decay,

That what we are, and have been, may be known;
But at the coming of the milder day,

These monuments shall all be overgrown.

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"One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,

Taught both by what she shows, and what conceals;
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

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1800.

THE BROTHERS.

"THESE 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."

To Jane, his wife,

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,

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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. Towards the field

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

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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,

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And blew with the same breath through days and weeks,

Lengthening invisibly its weary line

Along the cloudless Main, he, in those hours