The neighbors were alarmed, and to the brook
Some hastened; some ran to the lake: ere noon
They found him at the foot of that same rock,
Dead, and with mangled limbs. The third day after,
I buried him, poor Youth, and there he lies'
Leonard. And that then is his grave! - Before
his death

You say that he saw many happy years?
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

A habit which disquietude and grief

Had brought upon him; and we all conjectured
That, as the day was warm, he had lain down
On the soft heath, and, waiting for his comrades,
He there had fallen asleep; that in his sleep
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,
His shepherd's staff; for or that Pillar of rock
It had been caught midway; and there for years
It hung;
and mouldered there.

The Priest here ended. The Stranger would have thanked him, but he felt A gushing from his heart, that took away The power of speech. Both left the spot in silence; And Leonard, when they reached the churchyard

gate,

As the Priest lifted up the latch, turned round,
And, looking at the grave, he said, "My Brother!"
The Vicar did not hear the words: and now,
He pointed towards his dwelling-place, entreating
That Leonard would partake his homely fare:
The other thanked him with an earnest voice;
But added, that, the evening being calm,
He would pursue his journey. So they parted.

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,
That night, he wrote a letter to the Priest,
Reminding him of what had passed between them :
And adding, with a hope to be forgiven,
That it was from the weakness of his heart
He had not dared to tell him who he was.
This done, he went on shipboard, and is now
A Seaman, a gray-headed Mariner.

II.

1800.

ARTEGAL AND ELIDURE.

(SEE THE CHRONICLE OF GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH AND MILTON'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.)

WHERE be the temples which, in Britain's isle,
For his paternal Gods, the Trojan raised?
Gone like a morning dream, or like a pile
Of clouds that in cerulean ether blazed!
Ere Julius landed on her white-cliffed shore,
They sank, delivered o'er

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."

By brave Corineus aided, he subdued,
And rooted out the intolerable kind;
And this too-long-polluted land imbued
With goodly arts and usages refined;

Whence golden harvests, cities, warlike towers,
And pleasure's sumptuous bowers;

Whence all the fixed delights of house and home, Friendships that will not break, and love that

cannot roam.

O happy Britain! region all too fair
For self-delighting fancy to endure
That silence only should inhabit there,
Wild beasts, or uncouth savages impure!
But, intermingled with the generous seed,
Grew many a poisonous weed;

Thus fares it still with all that takes its birth

From human care, or grows upon the breast of

earth.

Hence, and how soon! that war of vengeance waged By Guendolen against her faithless lord;

Till she, in jealous fury unassuaged,

Had slain his paramour with ruthless sword:
Then, into Severn hideously defiled,

She flung her blameless child,

Sabrina, vowing that the stream should bear

That name through every age, her hatred to de

clare.

So speaks the Chronicle, and tells of Lear
By his ungrateful daughters turned adrift.
Ye lightnings, hear his voice!— they cannot hear,
Nor can the winds restore his simple gift.
But One there is, a Child of nature meek,
Who comes her Sire to seek;

And he, recovering sense, upon her breast
Leans smilingly, and sinks into a perfect rest.

There too we read of Spenser's fairy themes,
And those that Milton loved in youthful years;
The sage enchanter Merlin's subtle schemes;
The feats of Arthur and his knightly peers;
Of Arthur, who, to upper light restored,
With that terrific sword

Which yet he brandishes for future war,
Shall lift his country's fame above the polar star'

What wonder, then, if, in such ample field
Of old tradition, one particular flower
Doth seemingly in vain its fragrance yield,
And bloom unnoticed even to this late hour?
Now, gentle Muses, your assistance grant,