Brothers' Water. WRITTEN IN MARCH, WHILE RESTING ON THE BRIDGE AT THE FOOT OF BROTHERS' HE cock is crowing, THE The stream is flowing, The green field sleeps in the sun; Are at work with the strongest; Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one! Like an army defeated On the top of the bare hill; The ploughboy is whooping-anon—anon There's life in the fountains; Blue sky prevailing ; The rain is over and gone! William Wordsworth. 2 Brough. BROUGH BELLS. CONCERNING these bells at Brough, there is a tradition that they were given by one Brunskill, who lived upon Stanemore, in the remotest part of the parish, and had a great many cattle. One time it happened that his bull fell a-bellowing, which in the dialect of the country is called cruning, this being the genuine Saxon word to denote that vociferation. Thereupon he said to one of his neighbors, "Hearest thou how loud this bull crunes? If these cattle should all crune together, might they not be heard from Brough hither?" He answered, "Yea." "Well then," says Brunskill, "I'll make them all crune together." And he sold them all, and with the price thereof he bought the said bells. "ON N Stanemore's side, one summer eve, His herds in yonder Borrodale "Behind them, on the lowland's verge, "Slowly they came in long array, At times a low from them was heard, "The hills returned that lonely sound The only sound it was which then "Thou hear'st that lordly bull of mine, "Think'st thou if yon whole herd at once Their voices should combine, Were they at Brough, that we might not "That were a crune indeed,' replied "Up Mallerstang to Eden's springs, "Then shall the herd,' John Brunskill cried, 'From yon dumb steeple crune; And thou and I, on this hillside, Will listen to their tune NERAL LIBRARY University of MICHIGAN BROUGH. "So, while the merry Bells of Brough When he is dead and gone, "As one who, in his latter years, Contented with enough, Gave freely what he well could spare "Thus it hath proved: three hundred years Since then have passed away, And Brunskill's is a living name Among us to this day." "More pleasure," I replied, "shall I From this time forth partake, When I remember Helbeck woods, For old John Brunskill's sake. "He knew how wholesome it would be, And upland vales, to catch, at times, "What feelings and what impulses To herdsman or to shepherd-boy, The solitary day; "That, when his brethren were convened To meet for social prayer, "Or when a glad thanksgiving sound, "For victory by sea or land, "When such exultant peals were borne The sound should stir his blood, and give An English impulse there." Such thoughts were in the old man's mind, And had I store of wealth, methinks, John Brunskill, I would freely give, Robert Southey. |