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 self same 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 And Islands of Winander! many a time, Across the wat❜ry vale and shout again Of mountain torrents, or the visible scene Fair are the woods, and beauteous is the spot, The vale where he was born; the Church-yard hangs Upon a slope above the village school, And there along that bank when I have pass'd Mute for he died when he was ten years old.. THE BROTHERS, 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 Church yard 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 apologize for the abruptness with which the Poem begins. |