The BROTHERS.*.

"These Tourists, Heaven preserve us! needs must live

"A profitable life: some glance along,

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Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,

"And they were butterflies to wheel about

"Long as their summer lasted: some, as wise,

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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.

*This Poem was intended to be the concluding poem of a series of pastorals, the scene of which was laid among the mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland. I mention this to apologise for the abruptness with which the poem begins.

"But, for that moping Son of Idleness,

Why can he tarry yonder ?—In our church-yard "Is neither epitaph nor monument,

"Tomb-stone 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 Parifh 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 lock'd; 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 thirteenth year
Had chang'd his calling, with the mariners
A fellow-mariner, and so had fared

Through twenty seasons; but he had been rear'd
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 fill'd 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,
Flash'd 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 graz'd
On verdant hills, with dwellings among trees,

And Shepherds clad in the same country grey
Which he himself had worn. *

And now at length

From perils manifold, with some small wealth

Acquir'd by traffic in the Indian Isles,

To his paternal home he is return'd,

* This description of the Calenture is sketched from an imperfect recollection of an admirable one in prose, by Mr. Gilbert, Author of the Hurricane.

With a determin'd purpose to resume

The life which he liv'd 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 approach'd his home, his heart Fail'd in him; and, not venturing to inquire Tidings of one whom he so dearly lov'd,

Towards the church-yard he had turn'd aside,
That, as he knew in what particular spot
His family were laid, he thence might learn
If still his Brother liv'd, or to the file
Another grave was added.-He had found
Another grave, near which a full half hour

He had remain'd; but, as he gaz'd, there grew
Such a confusion in his memory,

That he began to doubt, and he had hopes.