Избранная лирика

                "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,
                Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag,
                Pencil in hand and book upon the knee,
                Will 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 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 stone-seat beneath the eaves
                Of his old cottage, — as it chanced, that day,
                Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone
                His wife sate near him, teasing matted wool,
                While, from the twin cards toothed with glittering wire,
                He fed the spindle of his youngest child,
                Who, in the open air, with due accord
                Of busy hands and back-and-forward steps,
                Her large round wheel was turning. 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
                That from his cottage to the churchyard 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
                Had left that calling, tempted to entrust
                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 blue 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 'mid the Indian Isles,
                To his paternal home he is returned,
                With a determined purpose to resume
                The life he had 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 enquire
                Tidings of one so long and dearly loved,
                He to the solitary churchyard turned;
                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 even to hope
                That he had seen this heap of turf before, —
                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 bad been well known to him:
                And oh 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,
                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 cheek, or solitary smiles
                Into his face, until the setting sun
                Write fool upon his forehead. - Planted thus
                Beneath a shed that over-arched the gate
                Of this rude churchyard, till the stars appeared
                The good Man might have communed with 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.

                                  Leonard.

                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 mis churchyard 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 foot-way all along the fields
                By the brook-side — 'tis gone — and that dark cleft!
                To me it does not seem to wear the face
                Which then it had!

                                  Priest.

                                    Nay, Sir, for aught I know,

                That chasm is much the same —

                                  Leonard.

                                            But, surely, yonder —

                                  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,
                As if they had been made that they might be
                Companions for each other: the huge crag
                Was rent with lightning-one hath disappeared;
                The other, left behind, is flowing still.
                For accidents aud changes such as these,
                We want not store of them; — a water-spout
                Will bring down half a mountain; what a feast
                For folks that wander up and down like you,
                To see an acre's breadth of that wide cliff
                One roaring cataract! a sharp May-storm
                Will come with loads of January snow,
                And in one night send twenty score of sheep
                To feed the ravens; or a shepherd dies
                By some untoward death among the rocks:
                The ice breaks up and sweeps away a bridge;
                A wood is felled:-and then for our own homes!
                A child is born or christened, a field ploughed,
                A daughter sent to service, a web spun,
                The old house-clock is decked with a new face;
                And hence, so far from wanting facts or dates
                To chronicle the time, we all have here
                A pair of diaries, — one serving, Sir,
                For the whole dale, and one for each fire-side —
                Yours was a stranger's judgment: for historians,
                Commend me to these valleys!

                                  Leonard.

                                            Yet your Churchyard

                Seems, if such freedom may be used with you,
                To say that you are heedless of the past:
                An orphan could not find his mother's grave:
                Here's neither head-nor foot stone, plate of brass,
                Cross-bones nor skull, — type of our earthly state
                Nor emblem of our hopes: the dead man's home
                Is but a fellow to that pasture-field.

                                  Priest.

                Why, there, Sir, is a thought that's new to me!

                The stone-cutters, 'tis true, might beg their bread
                If every English churchyard were like ours;
                Yet your conclusion wanders from the truth:
                We have no need of names and epitaphs;
                We talk about the dead by our firesides.
                And then, for our immortal part! we want
                No symbols, Sir, to tell us that plain tale:
                The thought of death sits easy on the man
                Who has been bom and dies among the mountains.

                                  Leonard.

                Your Dalesmen, then, do in each other's thoughts

                Possess a kind of second life: no doubt
                You, Sir, could help me to the history
                Of half these graves?

                                  Priest.

                                     For eight-score winters past,

                With what I've witnessed, and with what I've heard,
                Perhaps I might; and, on a winter-evening,
                If you were seated at my chimney's nook,
                By turning o'er these hillocks one by one,
                We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;
                Yet all in the broad highway of the world.
                Now there's a grave — your foot is half upon it, —
                It looks just like the rest; and yet that man
                Died broken-hearted.

                                  Leonard.

                                      'Tis a common case.

                We'll take another: who is he that lies
                Beneath yon ridge, the last of those three graves?
                It touches on that piece of native rock
                Left in the churchyard wall.

                                  Priest.

                                              That's Walter Ewbank.

                He had as white a head and fresh a cheek
                As ever were produced by youth and age
                Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore.
                Through five long generations had the heart
                Of Walter's forefathers o'erflowed the bounds
                Of their inheritance, that single cottage —
                You see it yonder! and those few green fields.
                They toiled and wrought, and still, from sire to son,
                Each struggled, and each yielded as before
                A little — yet a little, — and old Walter,
                They left to him the family heart, and land
                With other burthens than the crop it bore.
                Year after year the old man still kept up
                A cheerful mind, — and buffeted with bond,
                Interest, and mortgages; at last he sank,
                And went into his grave before his time.
                Poor Walter! whether it was care that spurred him
                God only knows, but to the very last
                He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale:
                His pace was never that of an old man:
                I almost see him tripping down the path
                With his two grandsons after him: — but you,
                Unless our Landlord be your host tonight,
                Have far to travel, — and on these rough paths
                Even in the longest day of midsummer —

                                  Leonard.

                But those two Orphans!

                                  Priest.

                Orphans! — Such they were —

                Yet not while Walter lived: for, though their parents
                Lay buried side by side as now they lie,
                The old man was a father to the boys,
                Two fathers in one father: and if tears,
                Shed when he talked of them where they were not,
                And hauntings from the infirmity of love,
                Are aught of what makes up a mother's heart,
                This old Man, in the day of his old age,
                Was half a mother to them. - If you weep, Sir,
                To hear a stranger talking about strangers,
                Heaven bless you when you are among your kindred!
                Ay — you may turn that way — it is a grave
                Which will bear looking at.

                                  Leonard.

                                            These boys — I hope

                They loved this good old Man? —

                                  Priest.

                                           They did — and truly:

                But that was what we almost overlooked,
                They were such darlings of each other. Yes,
                Though from the cradle they had lived with Walter,
                The only kinsman near them, and though he
                Inclined to both by reason of his age,
                With a more fond, familiar, tenderness;
                They, notwithstanding, had much love to spare,
                And it all went into each other's hearts.
                Leonard, the elder by just eighteen months,
                Was two years taller: 'twas a joy to see,
                To hear, to meet them! — From their house the school
                Is distant three short miles, and in the time
                Of storm and thaw, when every watercourse
                And unbridged stream, such as you may have noticed
                Crossing our roads at every hundred steps,
                Was swoln into a noisy rivulet,
                Would Leonard then, when elder boys remained
                At home, go staggering through the slippery fords,
                Bearing his brother on his back. I have seen him,
                On windy days, in one of those stray brooks,
                Ay, more than once I have seen him, mid-leg deep,
                Their two books lying both on a dry stone,
                Upon the hither side: and once I said,
                As I remember, looking round these rocks
                And hills on which we all of us were born,
                That God who made the great book of the world
                Would bless such piety —

                                  Leonard.

                                           It may be then —

                                  Priest.

                Never did worthier lads break English bread:

                The very brightest Sunday Autumn saw
                With all its mealy clusters of ripe nuts,
                Could never keep those boys away from church,
                Or tempt them to an hour of sabbath breach.
                Leonard and James! I warrant, every corner
                Among these rocks, and every hollow place
                That venturous foot could reach, to one or both
                Was known as well as to the flowers that grow there.
                Like roe-bucks they went bounding o'er the hills;
                They played like two young ravens on the crags:
                Then they could write, ay and speak too, as well
                As many of their betters-and for Leonard!
                The very night before he went away,
                In my own house I put into his hand
                A Bible, and I'd wager house and field
                That, if he be alive, he has it yet.

                                  Leonard.

                It seems, these Brothers have not lived to be

                A comfort to each other —

                                  Priest.

                                             That they might

                Live to such end is what both old and young
                In this our valley all of us have wished,
                And what, for my part, I have often prayed:
                But Leonard —

                                  Leonard.

                              Then James still is left among you!

                                  Priest.

                'Tis of the elder brother I am speaking:

                They had an uncle; — he was at that time
                A thriving man, and trafficked on the seas:
                And, but for that same uncle, to this hour
                Leonard had never handled rope or shroud:
                For the boy loved the life which we lead here;
                And though of unripe years, a stripling only,
                His soul was knit to this his native soil.
                But, as I said, old Walter was too weak
                To strive with such a torrent; when he died,
                The estate and house were sold; and all their sheep,
                A pretty flock, and which, for aught I know,
                Had clothed the Ewbanks for a thousand years: —
                Well — all was gone, and they were destitute,
                And Leonard, chiefly for his Brother's sake,
                Resolved to try his fortune on the seas.
                Twelve years are past since we had tidings from him.
                If there were one among us who had heard
                That Leonard Ewbank was come home again,
                From the Great Gavel, down by Leeza's banks,
                And down the Enna, far as Egremont,
                The day would be a joyous festival;
                And those two bells of ours, which there, you see —
                Hanging in the open air — but, О good Sir!
                This is sad talk — they'll never sound for him —
                Living or dead. - When last we heard of him
                He was in slavery among the Moors
                Upon the Barbary coast. - Twas not a little
                That would bring down his spirit; and no doubt,
                Before it ended in his death, the Youth
                Was sadly crossed. - Poor Leonard! when we parted,
                He took me by the hand, and said to me,
                If e'er he should grow rich, he would return,
                To live in peace upon his father's land,
                And lay his bones among us.

                                 Leonarnd.

                                             If that day

                Should come, 'twould needs be a glad day for him;
                He would himself, no doubt, be happy then
                As any that should meet him —

                                  Priest.

                                                 Happy! Sir —

                                  Leonard.

                You said his kindred all were in their graves,

                And that he had one Brother —

                                  Priest.

                                                That is but

                A fellow-tale of sorrow. From his youth
                James, though not sickly, yet was delicate;
                And Leonard being always by his side
                Had done so many offices about him,
                That, though he was not of a timid nature,
                Yet still the spirit of a mountain-boy
                In him was somewhat checked, and, when his Brother
                Was gone to sea, and he was left alone,
                The little colour that he had was soon
                Stolen from his cheek; he drooped, and pined, and pined —

                                  Leonard.

                But these are all the graves of full-grown men!

                                  Priest.

                Ay, Sir, that passed away: we took him to us;

                He was the child of all the dale — he lived
                Three months with one, and six months with another,
                And wanted neither food, nor clothes, nor love:
                And many, many happy days were his.
                But, whether blithe or sad, 'tis my belief
                His absent Brother still was at his heart.
                And, when he dwelt beneath our roof, we found
                (A practice till this time unknown to him)
                That often, rising from his bed at night,
                He in his sleep would walk about, and sleeping
                He sought his brother Leonard. - You are moved!
                Forgive me, Sir: before I spoke to you,
                I judged you most unkindly.

                                  Leonard.

                                             But this Youth,

                How did he die at last?

                                  Priest.

                                         One sweet May-morning,

                (It will be twelve years since when Springs 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-till he, at length,
                Through weariness, or, haply, to indulge
                The humour of the moment, lagged behind.
                You see yon precipice; — it wears the shape
                Of a vast building made of many crags;
                And in the midst is one particular rock
                That rises like a column from the vale,
                Whence by our shepherds it is called, THE PILLAR.
                Upon its aery summit crowned with heath,
                The loiterer, not unnoticed by his comrades,
                Lay stretched at ease; but, passing by the place
                On their return, they found that he was gone.
                No ill was feared; till one of them by chance
                Entering, when evening was far spent, the house
                Which at that time was James's home, there learned
                That nobody had seen him all that day:
                The morning came, and still he was unheard of:
                The neighbours 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 grasped, we think,
                His shepherd's staff; for on that Pillar of rock
                It had been caught mid-way; 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 grey-headed Mariner.