HESE tourists, heaven preferve us! needs muft live
A profitable life: fome glance along,
Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
And they were butterflies to wheel about
Long as the Summer lafted: fome, as wife,
Upon the forehead of a jutting crag
Sit perched, with book and pencil on their knee,
And look and fcribble, fcribble on and look,
Until a man might travel twelve ftout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn.
But for that moping fon of idleness,
Why can he tarry yonder?-In our churchyard
Is neither epitaph nor monument,
Tombstone nor name-only the turf we tread
And a few natural graves." To Jane, his wife,
Thus fpake the homely Priest of Ennerdale.
It was a July evening; and he fate
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 fate near him, teasing matted wool,
While, from the twin cards toothed with glittering wire,
He fed the spindle of the youngest child,
Who turned her large round wheel in the open air
With back and forward fteps. Towards the field
In which the parish chapel stood alone,
Girt round with a bare ring of moffy wall,
While half an hour went by, the Priest had sent
Many a long look of wonder: and at last,
Rifen from his feat, 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
Which from his cottage to the churchyard 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 fhepherd-lad-who ere his fixteenth year
Had left that calling, tempted to entrust
His expectations to the fickle winds.
And perilous waters,-with the mariners
A fellow-mariner,-and fo had fared
Through twenty feasons; 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 fhrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls, and inland founds
Of caves and trees :-and, when the regular wind
Between the tropics filled the steady fail,
And blew with the fame breath through days and weeks,
Lengthening invifibly its weary line
Along the cloudlefs main, he, in thofe hours
Of tiresome indolence, would often hang
Over the veffel's fide, and gaze and gaze;
And, while the broad green wave and sparkling foam
Flashed round him images and hues that wrought
In union with the employment of his heart,
He, thus by feverish paffion overcome,
Even with the organs of his bodily eye,
Below him, in the bofom of the deep,
Saw mountains-faw the forms of sheep that grazed
On verdant hills-with dwellings among trees,
And fhepherds clad in the fame country grey
Which he himself had worn.
From perils manifold, with fome small wealth
Acquired by traffic in the Indian Ifles,
To his parental home he is returned,
With a determined purpose to refume
The life which he lived there; both for the fake
Of many darling pleasures, and the love
Which to an only brother he has borne
In all his hardships, fince that happy time
When, whether it blew foul or fair, they two
Were brother-fhepherds 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 whom he fo dearly loved,
Towards the churchyard he had turned afide,—
That, as he knew in what particular spot
His family were laid, he thence might learn
If ftill 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 confufion in his memory,
That he began to doubt; and he had hopes
That he had feen this heap of turf before,-
That it was not another grave; but one
He had forgotten. He had loft his path,
As up the vale, that afternoon, he walked
Through fields which once had been well known to him:
And oh! what joy the recollection now
Sent to his heart! he lifted up his eyes,
And, looking round, imagined that he faw
Strange alteration wrought on every fide,
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 Stopped fhort, and thence, at leifure, 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 bufinefs 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 folitary smiles
Into his face, until the setting fun
Write fool upon his forehead. Planted thus
Beneath a fhed that over-arched the gate
Of this rude churchyard, till the stars appeared
The good man might have communed with himself,
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 enfued.
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