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-arch'd the gate

Of this rude church-yard, till the stars appear'd
The good Man might have cómmuned with himself,
But that the Stranger, who had left the grave,
Approach'd; 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:
Leon. 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 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 pass'd this road,)
There was a foot-way all along the fields
By the brook-side,
-'tis gone,-
To me it does not seem to wear the face
Which then it had.

Priest.

-

- and that dark cleft!

Nay, Sir, for aught I know,

That chasm is much the same

Leon.

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 disappear'd; 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,

45

THE BROTHERS.

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 fire-side.
Yours was a stranger's judgment: for historians,
Commend me to these valleys!

Leon.

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.

Leon. 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 witness'd, 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

Leon.

"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'erflow'd the bounds
Of their inheritance, that single cottage,-
You see it yonder, and those few green fields.
They toil'd 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 spurr'd 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,-
Leon. 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 talk'd of them where they were not,
And hauntings from th' 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.

They did, and truly:

But that was what we almost overlook'd,
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 remain'd
At home, go staggering through the slippery fords,
Bearing his brother on his back.

I've seen him,

On windy days, in one of those stray brooks,

Ay, more than once I've seen him, mid-leg deep,
Their two books lying both on a dry stone,
Upon the hither side: and once I said,
As I remember, looking round these rocks
And hills on which we all of us were born,

That God who made the great book of the world
Would bless such piety,-

Leon.

It may be, then,

Priest. Never did worthier lads break English bread:
The very brightest Sunday Autumn saw,
With all its mealy clusters of ripe nuts,

Could never keep those boys away from church,
Or tempt them to an hour of sabbath-breach.
Leonard and James! I warrant, every corner
Among these rocks, and every hollow place
That venturous foot could reach, to one or both
Was known as well as to the flowers that grow there.
Like roe-bucks they went bounding o'er the hills;
They play'd 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.

Leon. 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 wish'd,

And what, for my part, I have often pray'd:
But Leonard

Leon.

Then James still is left among you?
Priest. "Tis of the elder brother I am speaking:
They had an uncle; - he was at that time
A thriving man, and traffick'd 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,
Th' 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 as 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
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 cross'd. Poor Leonard! when we parted,

-

5 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. It stands at the head of the several vales of Ennerdale, Wastdale, and Borrowdale.

6 The Leeza is a river which flows into the Lake of Ennerdale: on issuing from the Lake, it changes its name, and is called the End, Eyne, or Enna. It falls into the sea a little below Egremont.