Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  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 110

  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 120

  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 this 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, 130

  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—140

  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 and changes such as these,

  We want not store of them;—a waterspout 150

  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! 160

  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 fireside—

  Yours was a stranger’s judgment: for historians,

  Commend me to these valleys!

  LEONARD. Yet your Churchyard 170

  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; 180

  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 born 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 190

  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 200

  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 church-yard 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. 210

  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 220

  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, 230

  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, 240

  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:250

  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, 260

  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 eider 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, 270

  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—

  LEONARD. It may be then—

  PRIEST. Never did worthier lads break English bread:

  The very brightest Sunday Autumn saw 280

  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 290

  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, 300

  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, 310

  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. 320

  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, O 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 330

  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 any his bones among us.

  LEONARD. If that day

  Should come, ‘twould needs be a glad day for him; 340

  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, 350

  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, 360

  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, 370

  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 Spring 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 380

  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. 390

  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! 400

  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. 410

  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 420

  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!” 430

  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 440

  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