worthy of its lofty theme, and of him who wrote and The hand of man, however, has endeavoured to impress
him who is addressed. In thus appending it, I cannot upon it a character still more interesting, by adding a
but hope that I am rendering a grateful service to every religious feeling to the respect which its age naturally
reflecting reader of this volume- -a service too, which inspires.
a restraining modesty might prevent Mr. Wordsworth
from rendering in his own edition. — H. R.

The poem by Coleridge, referred to in the above note, is transferred in this edition to what has become a more appropriate place, and will be found as an introduction to 'THE PRELUDE.' — H. R.]

66

Note 3, p. 82.

"The Norman Boy.'

Among ancient trees there are few, I believe, at least in France, so worthy of attention as an oak which may be seen in the 'Pays de Caux,' about a league from Yvetot, close to the church, and in the burialground of Allonville.

The height of this tree does not answer to its girth; the trunk, from the roots to the summit, forms a complete cone; and the inside of this cone is hollow throughout the whole of its height.

Such is the Oak of Allonville, in its state of nature.

The lower part of its hollow trunk has been transformed into a chapel of six or seven feet in diameter, carefully wainscoted and paved, and an open iron gate guards the humble sanctuary.

Leading to it there is a staircase, which twists round the body of the tree. At certain seasons of the year divine service is performed in this chapel.

The summit has been broken off many years, but there is a surface at the top of the trunk, of the diameter of a very large tree, and from it rises a pointed roof, covered with slates, in the form of a steeple, which is surmounted with an iron cross, that rises in a picturesque manner from the middle of the leaves, like an ancient hermitage above the surrounding wood.

Over the entrance to the chapel an inscription appears, which informs us it was erected by the Abbé du Détroit, Curate of Allonville, in the year 1696; and over a door is another, dedicating it 'To Our Lady of Peace.'"

Vide 14 No. Saturday Magazine.

1

POEMS

FOUNDED ON THE AFFECTIONS.

THE BROTHERS.*

His expectations to the fickle winds

And perilous waters, with the mariners

'THESE Tourists, Heaven preserve us! needs must A fellow-mariner, and so had fared

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,
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 neighbour'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." 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
as it chanced, that day,

Of his old cottage,

Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone

His Wife sate near him, teasing matted wool,
While, from the twin cards toothed with glittering

wire,

He fed the spindle of his youngest Child,

Who turned 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
Many a long look of wonder; and at last,
Risen from his seat, beside the snow-white ridge
Of carded wool which the old man had piled
He laid his implements with gentle care,
Each in the other locked; and, down the path
That from his cottage to the church-yard led,
He took his way, impatient to accost

The Stranger, whom he saw still lingering there.
'Twas one well known to him in former days,
A Shepherd-lad; who ere his sixteenth year
Had left that calling, tempted to entrust

This Poem was intended to conclude a series of pastorals, the scene of which was laid among the mountains of Cumber

Through twenty seasons; but he had been reared
Among the mountains, and he in his heart
Was half a Shepherd on the stormy seas.
Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds

Of caves and trees: - and, when the regular wind
Between the tropics filled the steady sail,

And blew with the same breath through days and
weeks,

Lengthening invisibly its weary line.

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 green wave and sparkling 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.t

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 now,
When Leonard had approached his home, his heart
Failed in him; and, not venturing to enquire
Tidings of one whom he so dearly loved,
Towards the church-yard he had turned aside;
That, as he knew in what particular spot
His family were laid, he thence might learn

+ This description of the Calenture is sketched from an im

and and Westmoreland. I mention this to apologise for the ab perfect recollection of an admirable one in prose, by Mr. Gil

ruptness with which the poem begins.

bert, author of The Hurricane

87

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,

Through fields which once had been well known to him: As if they had been made that they might be

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
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
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.

But that was what we almost overlooked,
They were such darlings of each other. For,
Though from their cradles they had lived with Walter,

The only Kinsman near them, and though he

Inclined to them 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.

That's Walter Ewbank. Leonard, the elder by just eighteen months,

lle 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.
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
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

le 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

PRIEST.

Orphans! Such they were—

Was two years taller: 't was a joy to see,

To hear, to meet them! - From their house the Schoo
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 perhaps
Remained at home, go staggering through the 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, mid-leg 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 finest Sunday that the Autumn saw
With all its mealy clusters of ripe nuts,
Could never keep these 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
Where foot could come, to one or both of them

Yet not while Walter lived:-for, though their pa- Was known as well as to the flowers that grow there.

rents

Lay buried side by side as now they lie.

M

Like Roe-bucks they went bounding o'er the hills;
They played like two young Ravens on the crags:

The Great Gavel, so called, I imagine, from its resemblance to the Gable end of a house, is one of the highest of the Cumberland mountains. It stands at the head of the several vales of Ennerdale, Watsdale, and Borrowdale.

The Leeza is a river which flows into the Lake of Ennerdale: on issuing from the Lake, it changes its name, and is called the End, Eyne, or Enna. It fails into the sea a little below Egremont.