By grief enfeebled was I turned adrift,
Helpless as sailor cast on desert rock;
Nor morsel to my mouth that day did lift,
Nor dared my hand at any door to knock.
I lay, where with his drowsy mates, the cock,
From the cross timber of an out-house hung;
Dismally tolled, that night, the city clock!
At morn my sick heart hunger scarcely stung,
Nor to the beggar's language could I frame my tongue.
So passed another day, and so the third;
Then did I try in vain the crowd's resort.
-In deep despair by frightful wishes stirred,
Near the sea-side I reached a ruined fort:
There, pains which nature could no more support,
With blindness linked, did on my vitals fall,
And I had many interruptions short
Of hideous sense; I sank, nor step could crawl,
And thence was carried to a neighbouring hospital.
Recovery came with food; but still, my brain
Was weak, nor of the past had memory.
I heard my neighbours, in their beds, complain
Of many things which never troubled me:
Of feet still bustling round with busy glee;
Of looks where common kindness had no part;
Of service done with careless cruelty,
Fretting the fever round the languid heart;
And groans, which, as they said, might make a dead man start.
These things just served to stir the torpid sense,
Nor pain nor pity in my bosom raised.
My memory and my strength returned; and thence
Dismissed, again on open day I gazed
At houses, men, and common light, amazed,
The lanes I sought, and as the sun retired,
Came, where beneath the trees a faggot blazed;
The travellers saw me weep, my fate inquired,
And gave me food, and rest, more welcome, more desired.
My heart is touched to think that men like these,
Wild houseless wanderers, were my first relief:
How kindly did they paint their vagrant ease!
And their long holiday that feared not grief!
For all belonged to all, and each was chief.
No plough their sinews strained; on grating road
No wain they drove; and yet the yellow sheaf
In every vale for their delight was stowed;
In every field, with milk their dairy overflowed.
They with their panniered asses semblance made
Of potters wandering on from door to door:
But life of happier sort to me portrayed,
And other joys my fancy to allure;
The bag-pipe dinning on the midnight moor
In barn uplighted, and companions boon
Well met from far, with revelry secure,
Among the forest glades, when jocund June
Rolled fast along the sky his warm and genial moon.
But ill they suited me; those journeys dark
O'er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch!
To charm the surly house-dog's faithful bark,
Or hang on tip-toe at the lifted latch;
The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match,
The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill,
And ear still busy on its nightly watch,
Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill:
Besides, on griefs so fresh my thoughts were brooding still.
What could I do, unaided and unblest?
My father! gone was every friend of thine :
And kindred of dead husband are at best
Small help; and, after marriage such as mine,
With little kindness would to me incline.
Ill was I then for toil or service fit:
With tears whose course no efforts could confine,
By the road-side forgetful would I sit
Whole hours, my idle arms in moping sorrow knit.
I led a wandering life among the fields;
Contentedly, yet sometimes self-accused,
I lived upon what casual bounty yields,
Now coldly given, now utterly refused.
The ground I for my bed have often used:
But, what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth
Is, that I have my inner self abused,
Foregone the home delight of constant truth,
And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.
Three years thus wandering, often have I viewed,
In tears, the sun towards that country tend
Where my poor heart lost all its fortitude
And now across this moor my steps I bend-
Oh! tell me whither- -for no earthly friend
Have I. She ceased, and weeping turned away,
As if because her tale was at an end
She wept; because she had no more to say
Of that perpetual weight which on her spirit lay.
Poems Founded on the Affections.
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,
Upon the forehead of a jutting crag
Sit perched, with book and pencil on their knee,
And look and scribble, scribble on and look,
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn.
But, from 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 store seat beneath the eaves
Of his old cottage, as it chanced, that day,
Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone
His wife sat near him, teasing matted wool,
While, from the twin cards, toothed with glittering wire,
He fed the spindle of his youngest child,
Who turned her large round wheel in the open air
With back and forward steps. 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
Which from his cottage to the church-yard led,
He took his way, impatient to accost
The stranger, whom he saw still lingering there.
'Twas one well known to him in former days,
A shepherd lad;—who ere his sixteenth year,
*This poem was intended to conclude a series of pastorals, the scene of which was laid among the mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland. I mention this to apologize for the abruptness with which the pcem begins.
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
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 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 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,
Acquired by traffic in the Indian isles,
To his parental home he is returned,
With a determined purpose to resume
The life which he 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 whom he so dearly loved,
Towards the church-yard he had turned aside,-
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 he had hopes
That he had seen this heap of turf before,-
*This description of the Calenture is sketched from an imperfect recollection of an admirable one in prose, by Mr. Gilbert, author of "The Hurricane."
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, the 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 the eternal hills themselves were changed.
By this the Priest, who down the field had come
Unseen by Leonard, at the church-yard gate
Stopped short, and thence, at leisure, 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 business 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 solitary smiles
Into his face, until the setting sun
Write fool upon his forehead. Planted thus
Beneath a shed that overarched the gate
Of this rude church-yard, till the stars appeared,
The good man might have communed within 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 ensued.
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 remembered? 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 passed this road,
There was a footway all along the fields
By the brook-side-'tis gone-and that dark cleft!
To me it does not seem to wear the face
Nay, sir, for aught I know,
That chasm is much the same
|