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,

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 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 aëry 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. No ill was feared; but 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 towards 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!

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.

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
Upon the grass, 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: at the time,
We guess, that in his hand he must have held
His Shepherd's staff; for midway in the cliff
It had been caught; and there for many 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 church-yard gate,
As the Priest lifted up the latch turned round,
And, looking at the grave, he said, " My Brother!"
The Vicar did not hear the words: and now,
Pointing towards the Cottage, he entreated
That Leonard would partake his homely fare:
The Other thanked him with a fervent 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
Were with him in his heart: his 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
A place in which he could not bear to live:
So he relinquished all his purposes.

He travelled on to Egremont: and thence,
That night, he wrote a letter to the Priest,

Reminding him of what had passed between them;
And adding, with a hope to be forgiven,
That it was from the weakness of his heart
He had not dared to tell him who he was.

This done, he went on shipboard, and is now
A Seaman, a grey-headed Mariner.

II.

ARTEGAL AND ELIDURE.

(SEE THE CHROnicle of geoffREY OF MONMOUTH, AND MILTON'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. D.)

WHERE be the Temples which, in Britain's Isle,
For his paternal Gods, the Trojan raised?
Gone like a morning dream, or like a pile
Of clouds that in cerulean ether blazed!.
Ere Julius landed on her white-cliffed shore,
They sank, delivered o'er

To fatal dissolution; and, I ween,

No vestige then was left that such had ever been.

Nathless, a British record (long concealed
In old Armorica, whose secret springs
No Gothic conqueror ever drank) revealed
The wondrous current of forgotten things;
How Brutus came, by oracles impelled,
And Albion's giants quelled

A brood whom no civility could melt,

"Who never tasted grace, and goodness ne'er had felt."

By brave Corineus aided, he subdued,
And rooted out the intolerable kind;
And this too-long-polluted land imbued
With goodly arts and usages refined;

Whence golden harvests, cities, warlike towers,
And Pleasure's sumptuous bowers;

Whence all the fixed delights of house and home, Friendships that will not break, and love that cannot roam.

O, happy Britain! region all too fair
For self-delighting fancy to endure
That silence only should inhabit there,
Wild beasts, or uncouth savages impure!
But, intermingled with the generous seed,
Grew many a poisonous weed;

Thus fares it still with all that takes its birth

From human care, or grows upon the breast of earth.

Hence, and how soon! that war of vengeance waged By Guendolen against her faithless lord;

Till she, in jealous fury unassuaged,

Had slain his Paramour with ruthless sword:
Then, into Severn hideously defiled,

She flung her blameless child,

Sabrina vowing that the stream should bear
That name through every age, her hatred to declare.

So speaks the Chronicle, and tells of Lear
By his ungrateful daughters turned adrift.

Ye lightnings, hear his voice! — they cannot hear,
Nor can the winds restore his simple gift.
But One there is, a Child of nature meek,
Who comes her Sire to seek;