Merciful protectress, kindling
Into anger or disdain ;

Many a captive hath she rescued,
Others saved from lingering pain.

Listen yet awhile;-with patience
Hear the homely truths I tell,
She in Grasmere's old church-steeple
Tolled this day the passing-bell.

Yes, the wild Girl of the mountains
To their echoes gave me sound,
Notice punctual as the minute,
Warning solemn and profound.

She, fulfilling her sire's office,
Rang alone the far-heard knell,
Tribute, by her hand, in sorrow,
Paid to One who loved her well,

When his spirit was departed
On that service she went forth;
Nor will fail the like to rer.der
When his corse is laid in earth.
What then wants the Child to temper,
In her breast, unruly fire,

To control the froward impulse
And restrain the vague desire ?

Easily a pious training

And a steadfast outward power
Would supplant the weeds and cherish,
In their stead, each opening flower.
Thus the fearless Lamb-deliv'rer
Woman-grown, meek-hearted, sage,
May become a blest example
For her sex, of every age.
Watchful as a wheeling eagle,
Constant as a soaring lark,
Should the country need a heroine,
She might prove our Maid of Arc.

Leave that thought; and here be uttered
Prayer that Grace divine may raise
Her humane courageous spirit

Up to heaven, thro' peaceful ways.

THE BROTHERS.

"THESE Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live

A profitable life: some glance along,
Rapid and gay, as if the earth were ir,
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 neighbor'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."

Between the tropics filled the steady sail, And blew with the same breath through days and weeks, Lengthening invisibly its weary lin 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 spark ling 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

gray

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

Failed in him; and, not venturing to enquire

Tidings of one so long and dearly loved,
He to the solitary church-yard 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 had 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
changed.

were

By this the Priest, who down the field had come,

Unseen by Leonard, at the church-yard 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 church-yard, till the stars ap-
peared

The good Man might have communed with himself,

But that the Stranger, who had left the grave,

Approached; he recognized 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 oné peaceful family; And who would grieve and fret, if, welcome

For accidents and 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 vou,
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;

Leonard.

To chronicle the time, we all have here
A pair of diaries,-one serving, Sir,

For the whole dale, and one for each fireside

Yours was a stranger's judgment: for historians,

Commend me to these valleys!

Leonard. Yet your Church-yard 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, [state Cross-bones hor skull,-type of our earthly 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 church-yard 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 fire-sides. 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 born and dies among the mountains.

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

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.
[to son,
They toiled and wrought, and still, from sire
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 stiil 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
stirred 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 to-night, 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, Ar. 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 water-course 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, midleg 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

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:

[well Then they could write, ay, and speak too, as 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