PRIEST. One sweet May-morning, (It will be twelve years since when Spring returns) He had gone forth among the new-dropped lambs, With two or three companions, whom their course Of occupation led from height to height Under a cloudless sun-1 Whence by our shepherds it is called, THE PILLAR. LEONARD. And that then is his grave!-Before his death PRIEST. Ay, that he did— LEONARD. And all went well with him?— PRIEST. If he had one, the youth had twenty homes. LEONARD. And you believe, then, that his mind was easy ? PRIEST. Yes, long before he died, he found that time Is a true friend to sorrow; and unless His thoughts were turned on Leonard's luckless fortune, He talked about him with a cheerful love. LEONARD. He could not come to an unhallowed end! PRIEST. Nay, God forbid !—You recollect I mentioned Had brought upon him; and we all conjectured He to the margin of the precipice Had walked, and from the summit had fallen headlong: And so no doubt he perished. When the Youth Fell, in his hand he must have grasp'd, we think, The Priest here ended The Stranger would have thanked him, but he felt The power of speech. Both left the spot in silence ; It was not long ere Leonard reached a grove That overhung the road: he there stopped short, And, sitting down beneath the trees, reviewed All that the Priest had said: his early years Were with him :-his long absence, cherished hopes, And thoughts which had been his an hour before, All pressed on him with such a weight, that now, This vale, where he had been so happy, seemed A place in which he could not bear to live: So he relinquished all his purposes. He travelled back to Egremont: and thence, Reminding him of what had passed between them; 1800. II. ARTEGAL AND ELIDURE. (SEE THE CHRONICLE OF GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, AND MILTON'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.) の WHERE be the temples which, in Britain's Isle, To fatal dissolution; and, I ween, No vestige then was left that such had ever been. Nathless, a British record (long concealed In old Armorica, whose secret springs No Gothic conqueror ever drank) revealed The marvellous current of forgotten things; How Brutus came, by oracles impelled, And Albion's giants quelled, A brood whom no civility could melt, "Who never tasted grace, and goodness ne'er had felt.” |