THE BROTHERS.

'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,
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,
Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone
His wife sat 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

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

THESE tourists, heaven preserve
A profitable life: some glance a
Rapid and gay, as if the earth were an
And they were butterflies to wIFE LUUT
Long as the summer lasted: H & WE
Upon the forehead of a jutting tray
Sit perch'd, with book and pus

And look and scribble, scribe sent..
Until a man might travel twelve stor the
Or reap an acre of his neighbour's son
But, for that moping son of idleness
Why can he tarry yonder?-sur sinsen:
Is neither epitaph nor monument

im:

rocks, anged.

field had come

yard gate.

leisure, limb by limb,