Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition)

Into the bosom of the steady lake.

Fair are the woods, and beauteous is the spot,

The vale where he was born: the Churchyard hangs

Upon a slope above the village school,

And there along that bank when I have pass’d

At evening, I believe, that near his grave

A full half-hour together I have stood,

Mute — for he died when he was ten years old.

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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 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,

Employ’d in winter’s work. Upon the stone

His Wife sate 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

Many a long look of wonder, and at last,

Risen from his seat, beside the snowy ridge

Of carded wool — which the old Man had piled

He laid his implements with gentle care,

Each in the other lock’d; and, down the path

Which from his cottage to the churchyard 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 thirteenth year

Had chang’d his calling, with the mariners

A fellow-mariner, and so had fared

Through twenty seasons; but he had been rear’d

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 fill’d 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 aide, and gaze and gaze,

And, while the broad green wave and sparkling foam

Flash’d 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 graz’d

On verdant hills, with dwellings among trees,

And Shepherds clad in the same country grey

Which he himself had worn.

And now at length,

From perils manifold, with some small wealth

Acquir’d by traffic in the Indian Isles,

To his paternal home he is return’d,

With a determin’d purpose to resume

The life which he liv’d 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 approach’d his home, his heart

Fail’d in him, and, not venturing to inquire

Tidings of one whom he so dearly lov’d,

Towards the churchyard he had turn’d aside,

That, as he knew in what particular spot

His family were laid, he thence might learn

If still his Brother liv’d, or to the file

Another grave was added. — He had found

Another grave, near which a full half hour

He had remain’d, but, as he gaz’d, there grew

Such a confusion in his memory,

That he began to doubt, and he had hopes

That he had seen this heap of turf before,

That it was not another grave, but one,

He had forgotten. He had lost his path,

As up the vale he came that afternoon,

Through fields which once had been well known to him.

And Oh! what joy the recollection now

Sent to his heart! he lifted up his eyes,

And looking round he thought that he perceiv’d

Strange alteration wrought on every side

Among the woods and fields, and that the rocks,

And the eternal hills, themselves were chang’d.

By this the Priest who down the field had come

Unseen by Leonard, at the churchyard gate

Stopp’d short, and thence, at leisure, limb by limb

He scann’d him with a gay complacency.

Aye, 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

Tears down his check, or solitary smiles

Into his face, until the setting sun

Write Fool upon his forehead. Planted thus

Beneath a shed that overarch’d the gate

Of this rude churchyard, till the stars appear’d

The good man might have commun’d with himself

But that the Stranger, who had left the grave,

Approach’d; he recogniz’d the Priest at once,

And after greetings interchang’d, and given

By Leonard to the Vicar as to one

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 remember’d. 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,

And see, that with our threescore years and ten

We are not all that perish. — I remember,

For many years ago I pass’d 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.

Why, Sir, for aught I know,

That chasm is much the same —

LEONARD.

But, surely, yonder —

PRIEST.

Aye, 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: ten years back,

Close to those brother fountains, the huge crag

Was rent with lightning — one is dead and gone,

The other, left behind, is flowing still. —

For accidents and changes such as these,

Why we have store of them! a water-spout

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