Not with the mean and vulgar works of man; But with high objects, with enduring things, With life and nature, purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying by such discipline Both pain and fear,-until we recognise A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapors rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine: Mine was it in the fields both day and night And by the waters, all the summer long, And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons; happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village-clock tolled six-I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home.-All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games. Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures,-the resounding horn, The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle: with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees, and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star;
Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.
"THESE Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs
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 neighbor'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, 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
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.
"T was 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.*
And now, at last, From perils manifold, with some small wealth
The description of the Calenture is sketched from an imperfect recollection of an admirable one in prose, by Mr. Gilbert, author of the Hurricane.
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 When Leonard had approached his home, his heart Failed in him; and, not venturing to inquire 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 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.
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