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when I’ve been sitting in the sun,

       That it was all for that unhappy Hart.

      What thoughts must through the creature’s brain have pass’d!

       To this place from the stone upon the steep

       Are but three bounds, and look, Sir, at this last!

       O Master! it has been a cruel leap.

      For thirteen hours he ran a desperate race;

       And in my simple mind we cannot tell

       What cause the Hart might have to love this place,

       And come and make his deathbed near the well.

      Here on the grass perhaps asleep he sank,

       Lull’d by this fountain in the summer-tide;

       This water was perhaps the first he drank

       When he had wander’d from his mother’s side.

      In April here beneath the scented thorn

       He heard the birds their morning carols sing,

       And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born

       Not half a furlong from that selfsame spring.

      But now here’s neither grass nor pleasant shade;

       The sun on drearier hollow never shone:

       So will it be, as I have often said,

       Till trees, and stones, and fountain all are gone.

      Grey-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well;

       Small difference lies between thy creed and mine;

       This beast not unobserv’d by Nature fell,

       His death was mourn’d by sympathy divine.

      The Being, that is in the clouds and air,

       That is in the green leaves among the groves.

       Maintains a deep and reverential care

       For them the quiet creatures whom he loves.

      The Pleasure-house is dust: — behind, before,

       This, is no common waste, no common gloom;

       But Nature, in due course of time, once more

       Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom.

      She leaves these objects to a slow decay

       That what we are, and have been, may be known;

       But, at the coming of the milder day,

       These monuments shall all be overgrown.

      One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,

       Taught both by what she shews, and what conceals,

       Never to blend our pleasure or our pride

       With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.

      There was a Boy, ye knew him well, ye Cliffs

       And Islands of Winander! many a time,

       At evening, when the stars had just begun

       To move along the edges of the hills,

       Rising or setting, would he stand alone,

       Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake,

       And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands

       Press’d closely palm to palm and to his mouth

       Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,

       Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls

       That they might answer him. And they would shout

       Across the wat’ry vale and shout again

       Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,

       And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud

       Redoubled and redoubled, a wild scene

      Of mirth and jocund din. And, when it chanced

       That pauses of deep silence mock’d his skill,

       Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung

       Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprize

       Has carried far into his heart the voice

       Of mountain torrents, or the visible scene

       Would enter unawares into his mind

       With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

       Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, receiv’d

       Into the bosom of the steady lake.

      Fair are the woods, and beauteous is the spot,

       The vale where he was born: the Churchyard hangs

       Upon a slope above the village school,

       And there along that bank when I have pass’d

       At evening, I believe, that near his grave

       A full half-hour together I have stood,

       Mute — for he died when he was ten years old.

THE BROTHERS.

       Table of Contents

      A PASTORAL POEM.

      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 their summer lasted; some, as wise,

       Upon the forehead of a jutting crag

       Sit perch’d 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, for that moping son 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 spake the homely Priest of Ennerdale.

       It was a July evening, and he sate

       Upon the long stone seat beneath the eaves

       Of his old cottage, as it chanced that day,

       Employ’d in winter’s work. Upon the stone

       His Wife sate near him, teasing matted wool,

       While, from the twin cards tooth’d with glittering wire,

       He fed the spindle of his youngest child,

       Who turn’d 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 snowy ridge

       Of carded wool — which the old Man had piled

       He laid his implements with gentle care,

       Each in the other lock’d; 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

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