There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My sister!('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you;-and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate

Our living calendar:

We from to-day, my Friend, will date

The opening of the year.

Love, now a universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth :

-It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than years of toiling reason:

Our minds shall drink at every pore

The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,

Which they shall long obey:

We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

MY HEART LEAPS UP.

[This is one of the many productions of Wordsworth which was singled out to be pooh-poohed by the Edinburgh Reviewers. Since then the tide has turned; and we of this generation are able to take a juster estimate of the mind of the poet-and of his critics, too. Lord Jeffrey boasted that he had crushed the Excursion at its birth: to which Southey replied "He crush the Excursion! Tell him, he might as easily crush Skiddaw !"]

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky :

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

LUCY GRAY.

[When Mr. Wordsworth and I were on that noble spot, the amphitheatre at Nismes, I observed his eyes fixed in a direction where there was little to be seen; and looking that way I beheld two very young children at play with flowers, and overheard him saying to himself, "O you darlings, I wish I could put you in my pocket and carry you to Rydal Mount!"-Recollections of a Tour in Italy by H. C. Robinson.]

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:

And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,

-The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;

But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night—
You to the town must go;

And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your mother through the snow."

"That, Father! will I gladly do:
'Tis scarcely afternoon-

The minster-clock has just struck two,

And yonder is the moon!"

At this the Father raised his hook,
And snapped a faggot-band;

He plied his work ;-and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke

Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down;

And many a hill did Lucy climb :
But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood

That overlooked the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood, A furlong from their door.

They wept-and, turning homeward, cried,

"In heaven we all shall meet;"

-When in the snow the mother spied

The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge

They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone-wall;

And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;

And further there were none !

-Yet some maintain that to this day

She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray

Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

[There is an anecdote told of a crazy woman who lived near Rydal, which shows strikingly the habits of the great poet. This woman was once asked if she knew Wordsworth, and what sort of a man he was. "Oh, indeed," said she, "he is canny enough at times; and tho' he gaes booing his pottery thro' the wuds, he will noo and than say, 'Hoo d'ye do, Nanny?' as sensible as ye or me."]

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.