They with their pannier'd asses semblance made
Of potters wandering on from door to door :
But life of happier sort to me portray'd,
And other joys my fancy to allure;
The bagpipe dinning on the midnight moor
In barn uplighted, and companions boon
Well met from far, with revelry secure,
Among the forest glades, when jocund June
Roll'd fast along the sky his warm and genial moon.
But ill they suited me; those journeys dark
O'er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch!
To charm the surly house-dog's faithful bark,
Or hang on tip-toe at the lifted latch;
The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match,
The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill,
And ear still busy on its nightly watch,
Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill:
Besides, on griefs so fresh my thoughts were brooding still.
What could I do, unaided and unblest?
My father! gone was every friend of thine:
And kindred of dead husband are at best
Small help; and, after marriage such as mine,
With little kindness would to me incline.
Ill was I then for toil or service fit:
With tears whose course no effort could confine,
By the road-side forgetful would I sit
Whole hours, my idle arms in moping sorrow knit.
I led a wandering life among the fields;
Contentedly, yet sometimes self-accused,
I lived upon what casual bounty yields,
Now coldly given, now utterly refused.
The ground I for my bed have often used:
But, what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth
Is, that I have my inner self abused,
Foregone the home delight of constant truth,
And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.
Three years thus wandering, often have I view'd,
In tears, the sun towards that country tend
Where my poor heart lost all its fortitude:
And now across this moor my steps I bend-
Oh! tell me whither-for no earthly friend
Have I. She ceased, and weeping turn'd away,
As if because her tale was at an end
She wept; because she had no more to say
Of that perpetual weight which on her spirit lay.
Poems founded on the Affections.
"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,
Upon the forehead of a jutting crag
Sit perch'd, with book and pencil on their knee,
And 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 churchyard
Is neither epitah nor monument,
Tombstone nor name-
e-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,
Employ'd in winter's work. Upon the stone
His wife sat near him, teasing matted wool,
While, from the twin cards, tooth'd with glittering wire,
He fed the spindle of his youngest child,
Who turn'd her large round wheel in the open air
With back and forward steps. 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 lock'd; and, down the path
Which from his cottage to the churchyard 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 intrust
His expectations to the fickle winds
And perilous waters, -with the mariners
A fellow-mariner, -and so had fared
This poem was intended to conclude a series of pastorals, the scene of which was laid among the mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland. I mention this to apologize for the abruptness with which the poem begins.
Through twenty seasons; but he had been rear'd
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 fill'd 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 green wave and sparkling foam
Flash'd 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. *
And now at last
From perils manifold, with some small wealth,
Acquired by traffic in the Indian isles,
To his parental home he is return'd,
With a determined purpose to resume
The life which he 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,
When Leonard had approach'd his home, his heart
Fail'd in him; and, not venturing to inquire
Tidings of one whom he so dearly loved,
Towards the churchyard he had turn'd aside,-
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 remain'd: but, as he gazed, there grew
Such a confusion in his memory,
That he began to doubt; and he had hopes
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 walk'd
Through fields which once had been well known to him:
And oh what joy, the recollection now
This description of the Calenture is sketched from an imperfect recollection of an admirable one in prose, by Mr. Gilbert, author of "The Hurricane."
Sent to his heart! he lifted up his eyes,
And looking round, imagined that he saw
Strange alteration wrought on every side
Among the woods and fields, and that the rocks,
And the eternal hills themselves were changed.
By this the Priest, who down the field had come
Unseen by Leonard, at the churchyard gate
Stopp'd 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 cheeks, or solitary smiles
Into his face, until the setting sun
Write fool upon his forehead. Planted thus
Beneath a shed that over-arch'd the gate
Of this rude churchyard, till the stars appear'd,
The good man might have communed within himself,
But that the Stranger, who had left the grave,
Approach'd; he recognized the Priest at once,
And, after greetings interchanged, and given
By Leonard to the Vicar, as to one
Unknown to him, this dialogue ensued.
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 remember'd? Scarce a funeral
Comes to this churchyard 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 pass'd this road,
There was a footway all along the fields
By the brook-side-'tis gone-and that dark cleft! To me it does not seem to wear the face
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: ten years back,
Close to those brother fountains, the huge crag
Was rent with lightning,-one is dead and gone,
The other, left behind, is flowing still.*.
For accidents and changes such as these,
We want not store of them!-a waterspout
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 fell'd-and then for our own homes!
A child is born or christen'd, a field plough'd,
A daughter sent to service, a web spun,
The old house clock is deck'd 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 fireside-
Yours was a stranger's judgment: for historians,
Commend me to those valleys!
Yet your churchyard 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 or skull,-type of our earthly state Or emblem of our hopes: the dead man's home Is but a fellow to that pasture field.
Why, there, sir, is a thought that's new to me!
The stone-cutters, 'tis true, might beg their bread
If every English churchyard 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 firesides.
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.
Your dalesmen, then, do in each other's thoughts
This actually took place upon Kidstow Pike at the head of Hawes Water.
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