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 him:

And oh what joy this recollection now
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 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 him-
self,

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!

Priest. Nay, Sir, for aught I know, That chasm is much the sameLeonard. But, surely, yonderPriest. 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, Το 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 moun-
tains.

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?

Priest.
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,-

Leonard.

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.

Priest.

That's Walter Ewbank. 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
A little-yet a little, and old Walter,
They left to him the family heart, and land
With other burthens than the crop it bore.
Year after year the old man still kept up
A cheerful mind,-and buffeted with bond,
Interest, and mortgages; at last he sank,
And went into his grave before his time.
Poor Walter! whether it was care that spurred
him

God only knows, but to the very last
He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale:
His pace was never that of an old man :
I almost see him tripping down the path
With his two grandsons after him :-but you,
Unless our Landlord be your host to-night,
Have far to travel,-and on these rough paths
Even in the longest day of midsummer-
Leonard. But those two Orphans!

Priest.

Orphans-Such they were

Yet not while Walter lived:-for, though their parents

Lay buried side by side as now they lie,
The old man was a father to the boys,
Two fathers in one father: and if tears,

Shed when he talked of them where they were not,

And hauntings from the infirmity of love,

Are aught of what makes up a mother's heart,
This old Man, in the day of his old age,
Was half a mother to them.-If you weep, Sir,
To hear a stranger talking about strangers,
Heaven bless you when you are among your
kindred !

Ay-you may turn that way—it is a grave
Which will bear looking at.
Leonard.
These boys-I hope
They loved this good old Man?--
Priest.
They did and truly:
But that was what we almost overlooked,
They were such darlings of each other. Yes,
Though from the cradle they had lived with
Walter,

The only kinsman near them, and though he
Inclined to both by reason of his age,
With a more fond, familiar tenderness;
They, notwithstanding, had much love to spare,
And it all went into each other's hearts.
Leonard, the elder by just eighteen months,
Was two years taller: 'twas a joy to see,
To hear, to meet them!-From their house the
school

Is distant three short miles, and in the time
Of storm and thaw, when every water-course
And unbridged stream, such as you may have
noticed

Crossing our roads at every hundred steps,
Was swoln into a noisy rivulet,

Would Leonard then, when elder boys remained At home, go staggering through the slippery fords,

Bearing his brother on his back. I have seen him,

On windy days, in one of those stray brooks, Ay, more than once I have seen hím, mid-leg deep,

Their two books lying both on a dry stone,
Upon the hither side: and once I said,

Like roe-bucks they went bounding o'er the hills;

They played like two young ravens on the crags:
Then they could write, ay and speak too, as well
As many of their betters-and for Leonard!
The very night before he went away,
In my own house I put into his hand
A bible, and I'd wager house and field
That, if he be alive, he has it yet.

Leonard. It seems, these Brothers have not lived to be

A comfort to each other

Priest. That they might Live to such end is what both old and young In this our valley all of us have wished, And what, for my part, I have often prayed: But Leonard

Leonard. Then James still is left among you! Priest. "Tis of the elder brother I am speak. ing:

They had an uncle ;-he was at that time
A thriving man, and trafficked on the seas:
And, but for that same uncle, to this hour
Leonard had never handled rope or shroud:
For the boy loved the life which we lead here;
And though of unripe years, a stripling only,
His soul was knit to this his native soil.
But, as I said, old Walter was too weak
To strive with such a torrent; when he died,
The estate and house were sold; and all their
sheep,

A pretty flock, and which, for aught I know,
Had clothed the Ewbanks for a thousand

years:

Well-all was gone, and they were destitute,
And Leonard, chiefly for his Brother's sake,
Resolved to try his fortune on the seas.
Twelve years are past since we had tidings from
him.

If there were one among us who had heard
That Leonard Ewbank was come home again,
From the Great Gavel,* down by Leeza's banks,
And down the Enna, far ás Egremont,
The day would be a joyous festival;
And those two bells of ours, which there you

see

Hanging in the open air-but, O good Sir!
This is sad talk-they'll never sound for him— •

* The Great Gavel, so called, I imagine, from its resemblance to the gable end of a house, is one of the highest of the Cumberland mountains.

The Leeza is a river which flows into the Lake of Ennerdale.

Living or dead.-When last we heard of him,
He was in slavery among the Moors
Upon the Barbary coast.-'Twas not a little
That would bring down his spirit; and no doubt,
Before it ended in his death, the Youth
Was sadly crossed.-Poor Leonard! when we
parted,

He took me by the hand, and said to me,
If e'er he should grow rich, he would return,
To live in peace upon his father's land,
And lay his bones among us.

Leonard.

If that day

Priest.

That is but

A fellow-tale of sorrow. From his youth
James, though not sickly, yet was delicate;
And Leonard being always by his side
Had done so many offices about him,
That, though he was not of a timid nature,
Yet still the spirit of a mountain-boy

In him was somewhat checked; and, when his
Brother

Was gone to sea, and he was left alone,
The little colour that he had was soon
Stolen from his cheek; he drooped, and pined,
and pined

Leonard. But these are all the graves of full-
grown men !

Priest. Ay, Sir, that passed away: we took him to us;

He was the child of all the dale-he lived Three months with one, and six months with another;

And wanted neither food, nor clothes, nor love:
And many, many happy days were his.
But, whether blithe or sad, 'tis my belief
His absent Brother still was at his heart.
And, when he dwelt beneath our roof, we found
(A practice till this time unknown to him)
That often, rising from his bed at night,
He in his sleep would walk about, and sleeping
He sought his brother Leonard.-You are
moved!

Forgive me, Sir: before I spoke to you,
I judged you most unkindly.
Leonard.

But this Youth, How did he die at last? Priest. One sweet May-morning, (It will be twelve years since when Spring returns)

He had gone forth among the new-dropped lambs,

With two or three companions, whom their

course

Of occupation led from height to height Under a cloudless sun-till he, at length, Through weariness, or, haply, to indulge The humour of the moment, lagged behind. You see yon precipice-it wears the shape Of a vast building made of many crags; And in the midst is one particular rock That rises like a column from the vale, Whence by our shepherds it is called PILLAR.

Upon its aëry summit crowned with heath,
The loiterer, not unnoticed by his comrades,
Lay stretched at ease; but, passing by the place
On their return, they found that he was gone.
No ill was feared; till one of them by chance
Entering, when evening was far spent, the house
Which at that time was James's home, there
learned

That nobody had seen him all that day:

The morning came, and still he was unheard of:

The neighbours were alarmed, and to the brook Some hastened; some ran to the lake: ere noon They found him at the foot of that same rock Dead, and with mangled limbs. The third day after

I buried him, poor Youth, and there he lies! Leonard. And that then is his grave!-Before his death

You say that he saw many happy years?
Priest. Ay, that he did-

Leonard.

And all went well with him?Priest. If he had one, the youth had twenty

It was not long ere Leonard reached a grove That overhung the road: he there stopped short,

And, sitting down beneath the trees, reviewed
All that the Priest had said: his early years
Were with him :-his long absence, cherished
hopes,

And thoughts which had been his an hour before,
All pressed on him with such a weight that now
This vale, where he had been so happy, seemed
A place in which he could not bear to live:
So he relinquished all his purposes.

He travelled back to Egremont: and thence,
That night, he wrote a letter to the Priest,
Reminding him of what had passed between

them;

ARTEGAL AND ELIDURE. (SEE THE CHRONICLE OF GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH AND MILTON'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.) WHERE be the temples which, in Britain's Isle, For his paternal Gods, the Trojan raised? Gone like a morning dream, or like a pile Of clouds that in cerulean ether blazed! Ere Julius landed on her white-cliffed shore, They sank, delivered o'er

To fatal dissolution; and, I ween,

No vestige then was left that such had ever been.
Nathless, a British record (long concealed
In old Armorica, whose secret springs
No Gothic conqueror ever drank) revealed
The marvellous current of forgotten things;
How Brutus came, by oracles impelled,

And Albion's giants quelled,

A brood whom no civility could melt,

She flung her blameless child,
Sabrina,-vowing that the stream should bear
That name through every age, her hatred to
declare.

By his ungrateful daughters turned adrift.
So speaks the Chronicle, and tells of Lear
Ye lightnings, hear his voice!-they cannot
hear,
Nor can the winds restore his simple gift.
But One there is, a Child of nature meek,
Who comes her Sire to seek ;

And he, recovering sense, upon her breast
Leans smilingly, and sinks into a perfect rest.
There too we read of Spenser's fairy themes,
And those that Milton loved in youthful years;
The sage enchanter Merlin's subtle schemes;
The feats of Arthur and his knightly peers;
Of Arthur,-who, to upper light restored,
With that terrific sword

Which yet he brandishes for future war,
Shall lift his country's fame above the polar
star!

What wonder, then, if in such ample field
Of old tradition, one particular flower
Doth seemingly in vain its fragrance yield,
And bloom unnoticed even to this late hour?

Now, gentle Muses, your assistance grant,
While I this flower transplant

Into a garden stored with Poesy;
Where flowers and herbs unite, and haply some
weeds be,

That, wanting not wild grace, are from all mischief free!

A KING more worthy of respect and love
Than wise Gorbonian ruled not in his day;
And grateful Britain prospered far above
All neighbouring countries through his righteous
sway;

He poured rewards and honours on the good;
The oppressor he withstood;
And while he served the Gods with reverence
due

had felt."

O, happy Britain ! region all too fair
For self-delighting fancy to endure
That silence only should inhabit there,
Wild beasts, or uncouth savages impure!
But, intermingled with the generous seed,

Grew many a poisonous weed;
Thus fares it still with all that takes its birth
From human care, or grows upon the breast of
earth.

Hence, and how soon! that war of vengeance waged

By Guendolen against her faithless lord;
Till she, in jealous fury unassuaged

Had slain his paramour with ruthless sword:
Then, into Severn hideously defiled,

cities grew.

He died, whom Artegal succeeds-his son;
But how unworthy of that sire was he!
A hopeful reign, auspiciously begun,
Was darkened soon by foul iniquity.
From crime to crime he mounted, till at length

The nobles leagued their strength With a vexed people, and the tyrant chased; And, on the vacant throne, his worthier brother placed.

From realm to realm the humbled Exile went,
Suppliant for aid his kingdom to regain;
In many a court, and many a warrior's tent,
He urged his persevering suit in vain.
Him, in whose wretched heart ambition failed,
Dire poverty assailed;

And, tired with slights his pride no more could brook,

He towards his native country cast a longing

look.

Had swayed the royal mace,
Flattered and feared, despised yet deified,
In Troynovant, his seat by silver Thames's side!
From that wild region where the crownless King
Lay in concealment with his scanty train,
Supporting life by water from the spring,
And such change food as outlaws can obtain,
Unto the few whom he esteems his friends
A messenger he sends;

And from their secret loyalty requires
Shelter and daily bread,-the sum of his desires.
While he the issue waits, at early morn
Wandering by stealth abroad, he chanced to hear
A startling outcry made by hound and horn,
From which the tusky wild boar flies in fear;
And, scouring toward him o'er the grassy plain,

Behold the hunter train!

He bids his little company advance

grasp,

The British sceptre, here would I to thee
The symbol yield; and would undo this clasp,
If it confined the robe of sovereignty.
Odious to me the pomp of regal court,
And joyless sylvan sport,

While thou art roving, wretched and forlorn, Thy couch the dewy earth, thy roof the forest thorn!'

"

nance.

right?

But thou-I know not how inspired, how ledWouldst change the course of things in all men's sight!

And this for one who cannot imitate

Thy virtue, who may hate:

For, if, by such strange sacrifice restored, He reign, thou still must be his king and sovereign lord ;

Lifted in magnanimity above

gave,

Feebly returned by daunted Artegal ;.
Whose natural affection doubts enslave,
And apprehensions dark and criminal.
Loth to restrain the moving interview,

The attendant lords withdrew;

And, while they stood upon the plain apart, Thus Elidure, by words, relieved his struggling heart.

"By heavenly Powers conducted, we have met; O Brother! to my knowledge lost so long, But neither lost to love, nor to regret, Nor to my wishes lost ;-forgive the wrong, (Such it may seem) if I thy crown have borne,

Thy royal mantle worn:

I was their natural guardian; and 'tis just That now I should restore what hath been held

in trust."

A while the astonished Artegal stood mute,
Then thus exclaimed: "To me, of titles shorn,
And stripped of power! me, feeble, destitute,
To me a kingdom! spare the bitter scorn:
If justice ruled the breast of foreign kings,

Then, on the wide-spread wings

Of war, had I returned to claim my right;

Or even conceive; surpassing me in love
Far as in power the eagle doth the worm:
I, Brother! only should be king in name,
And govern to my shame;

A shadow in a hated land, while all
Of glad or willing service to thy share would
fall."

"Believe it not," said Elidure; "respect
Awaits on virtuous life, and ever most
Attends on goodness with dominion decked,
Which stands the universal empire's boast;
This can thy own experience testify;
Nor shall thy foes deny
That, in the gracious opening of thy reign,
Our father's spirit seemed in thee to breathe
again.

And what if o'er that bright unbosoming
Clouds of disgrace and envious fortune past!
Have we not seen the glories of the spring
By veil of noontide darkness overcast?
The frith that glittered like a warrior's shield,
The sky, the gay green field,
Are vanished; gladness ceases in the groves,
And trepidation strikes the blackened moun-

tain coves.

"I do not blame thee," Elidure replied; "But, if my looks did with my words agree, I should at once be trusted, not defied, And thou from all disquietude be free. May the unsullied Goddess of the chase, Who to this blessed place

At this blest moment led me, if I speak With insincere intent, on me her vengeance wreak!

Seems the wide world, far brighter than before! Even so thy latent worth will re-appear, Gladdening the people's heart from shore to

shore;

For youthful faults ripe virtues shall atone;
Re-seated on thy throne,

Proof shalt thou furnish that misfortune, pain, And sorrow, have confirmed thy native right to reign,