104

DEAD SKY-LARK.

Come Lucy, let me dry those tearful eyes; Take thou, dear child, a lesson not unholy,

From one whom nature taught to moralize, Both in his mirth and in his melancholy.

I ask not whither is the spirit flown,

That lit the eye which there in death is seal'd;

Our Father hath not made that mystery known;

Needless the knowledge, therefore not reveal'd.

But didst thou know in sure and sacred truth,

It had a place assigned in yonder skies, There through an endless life of joyous youth To warble in the bowers of Paradise;

Lucy, if then the power to thee were given ; In that cold form its life to re-engage, Wouldst thou call back the warbler from its heaven

To be again the tenant of a cage ?

DEAD SKY-LARK.

105

Only that thou might'st cherish it again, Would'st thou the object of thy love recall To mortal life, and chance, and change, and pain,

And death, that must be suffered once by all?

Oh no, thou say'st, oh, surely not, not so!
I read the answer which those looks ex-

For

press;

pure and true affection, well I know, Leaves in the heart no room for selfishness.

What we love perfectly, for its own sake
We love, and not our own, being ready
thus

Whate'er self-sacrifice is asked, to make;
That which is best for it, is best for us.

O Lucy! treasure up that pious thought!

It hath a balm for sorrow's keenest darts; And with true comfort thou wilt find it fraught,

If grief should reach thee in thy heart of

hearts.

Southey

106 REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.

THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight

appears,

Hangs a thrush that sings loud; it has sung for three years:

Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard

In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her?

she sees

A mountain ascending, a vision of trees; Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,

And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,

Down which she so often has tripped with her pail,

And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's;

The only one dwelling on earth that she

VAUDOIS VALLEYS.

107

She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,

The mist and the river, the hill and the

shade;

The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise;

And the colours have all passed away from

her eyes.

Wordsworth.

Say, what is honour?-'tis the finest sense, Of justice which the human mind can frame.

Wordsworth.

THE VAUDOIS VALLEYS.

Go thou to the pastoral vales
Of the Alpine mountains old,
If thou would'st hear immortal tales
By the wind's deep whispers told!

Go, if thou lov'st the soil to tread
Where man has nobly striven,
And life, like incense has been shed,
An offering unto heaven.

108

VAUDOIS VALLEYS.

For o'er the snows, and round the pines;
Hath swept a noble flood;
The nurture of the peasant's vines
Hath been the martyr's blood!

A spirit stronger than the sword,
And loftier than despair,
Through all the heroic region pour'd,
Breathes in the generous air.

A memory clings to every steep
Of long enduring faith,

And the sounding streams glad record keep
Of courage unto death.

Go, when the sabbath-bell is heard

Up through the wilds to float,

When the dark old woods and caves are stirr'd

To gladness by the note.

When forth, along their thousand rills,
The mountain people come,

Join thou their worship on those hills
Of glorious martyrdom.

And while the song of praise ascends,
And while the torrent's voice,

Like the swell of many an organ, blends,
Then let thy soul rejoice.