Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

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.

1799.

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 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

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.

"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

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.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »