It was a July evening; and he sat Upon the long stone seat beneath the eaves as it chanced, that day, Of his old cottage, Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone He fed the spindle of his youngest child, Of busy hands and back-and-forward steps, In which the Parish Chapel stood alone, Girt round with a bare ring of mossy wall, 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 intrust 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 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 Saw mountains ; saw the forms of sheep that grazed On verdant hills,— with dwellings among trees, And shepherds clad in the same country gray Which he himself had worn.* And now, at last, From perils manifold, with some small wealth *This 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, The life he had lived there; both for the sake In all his hardships, since that happy time Another grave was added.· - He had found He had remained; but, as he gazed, there grew That he began to doubt, and even to hope And O 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 churchyard gate Stopped short, and thence, at leisure, limb by limb, Perused him with a gay complacency. Ay, thought the Vicar, smiling to himself, The happy man will creep about the fields, - Planted thus Beneath a shed that overarched the gate self, But that the Stranger, who had left the grave, Approached; he recognized 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 see, that with our threescore years and ten There was a foot-way all along the fields By the brook-side, - 't is gone!—and that dark cleft! To me it does not seem to wear the face Priest. 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, For accidents and changes such as these, We want not store of them; a water-spout |