High over Langdale, vale and hill,
The swans had winged their annual way;
By Brathay pools and Dungeon-Ghyll
The lambs as now were wild at play;
The mighty monarchs of the vale,
Twins in their grandeur, towered on high;
And brawling brooks to many a tale
Of lowly life and love went by.
There cheerful on the lonely wild
One happy bower through shine and storm,
Amidst the mountains round it piled,
Preserved its hearth-stone bright and warm;
Where now a mother and her boy
Stood parting in one fond embrace;
The shadow of their faded joy,
Between them, darkening either face.
"I'll think, when that great city's folds
Enclose me like a restless sea,
Of all this northern valley holds
In its warm cottage walls for me.
I'll think amidst its ceaseless roar,
Within these little bounds how blest
Was here our life, and long the more
For that far-off return and rest."--
Forth sped the youth: the valley closed
Behind him: adamantine hills,
Like giants round the gates reposed
Of his lost Eden, frowned; the rills
With fainter murmurs far away
Died in the distance; and at length
He stood amidst the proud array
Of London in his youth and strength.
He came when mid the moving life
The Terror and the Plague went by.
He walked where Panic fled the strife
Of Strength with Death the Shadow nigh.
The shaft that flew unseen by night,
The deadly plague-breath, striking down
Thousands on thousands in its flight,
Made soon the widow's boy its own.
Ah! woe for her! in that far vale
The sorrow reached her; for there came
Dread tidings and the mournful tale,
Dear relics and the fatal Name.
All in the brightness of the noon
She bent above those relics dear;
And ere the glimmering of the moon
The Shadow from his side was near.
And forth from out her home there stalked
The Terror with the name so dread;
It pass'd the dalesman as he walked;
It dogg'd the lonely shepherd's tread;
It breathed into the farms; it smote
The homesteads on the loneliest moor;
And shuddering Nature cowered remote;
All fled the plague-struck widow's door.
Alone, in all the vale profound:
Alone, on Lingmoor's mosses wide:
Alone, with all the hills around
From Langdale head to Loughrigg's side;
Alone, beneath the cloud of night,
The morning's mist, the evening's ray;
The hearthstone cold, and quenched its light;
The Shadow wrestled with its prey.
And day by day, while went and came
The sunlight in the cheerless vale,
Her hearth no more its wonted flame
Renewed, the opening morns to hail:
Glow'd not, though beating blasts and rain
Drove in beneath her mournful eaves,
Through Springs that brought the buds again,
And Autumns strew'd with fading leaves.
No human foot its timorous falls
Led near it, venturing to unfold
The scene within those mouldering walls,
The mystery in that lonely hold.
Nor on that mountain side did morn
Or noon show how, or where, for rest
That Earth to kindlier earth was borne--
The kinless to the kindred breast.
Only the huntsman on the height,
The herdsman on the mountain way,
Looked sometimes on the far-off site
How desolate and lone it lay.
Till when the years had rolled, their eyes
Saw wondering, where that home decay'd,
A little plot of green arise
Contiguous to the ruined shade.
A little grove of half a score
Of laurels, intertwining round
One nameless centre, blossomed o'er
That homestead's desolated bound;
And where their leaves hang green above--
A lowly circling fence of stone
Sprang, reared by Powers that build to Love
When man, too weak, forsakes his own.
And there where all lies wild and bare--
Where mountains rise and waters flow,
From Langdale's summits high in air,
To Brathay pools that sleep below--
A green that never fades, one grove
Of brightest laurels rears its boughs;
While o'er that home's foundations rove
The wild cats, and the asses browse.
There, if the song birds come, their notes
Are hushed, that nowhere else are still:
And when the winds pipe loud, and floats
The mist-cloud down from Dungeon-Ghyll,
Again the cottage-eaves arise
Within it, as of old, serene,--
Its lights shine forth, its smoke up flies,
And fades the grove of laurels green.
But dimly falls the gleam of morn
Around it; on the ferns the shade
Of evening leaves a look forlorn
That elsewhere Nature has not laid.
So, lonely on its height, so, drear,
It stands, while seasons wax and fail,
Unchanged amid the changing year,
The voiceless mystery of the vale.