THE MOTHER'S RETURN,

BY DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

[I may sum up in one brief abstract the amount of Miss Wordsworth's character, as a companion, by saying that she was the very wildest (in the sense of the most natural) person I have ever known; and also the truest, most inevitable, and at the same time the quickest and readiest in her sympathy with either joy or sorrow, with laughter or with tears, with the realities of life or the larger realities of the poets! Her knowledge of literature was irregular, and thoroughly unsystematic. She was content to be ignorant of many things; but what she knew and had really mastered lay where it could not be disturbed-in the temple of her own most fervid heart.-DE QUINCEY.]

A month, sweet Little-ones, is past

Since your

dear Mother went away,—
And she to-morrow will return;
To-morrow is the happy day.

O blessed tidings! thought of joy!
The eldest heard with steady glee;
Silent he stood; then laughed amain,-
And shouted, "Mother, come to me!"

Louder and louder did he shout,
With witless hope to bring her near;
"Nay, patience! patience, little boy!
Your tender mother cannot hear."

I told of hills, and far-off towns,
And long, long vales to travel through;—
He listens, puzzled, sore perplexed,
But he submits; what can he do?

*

*

No strife disturbs his sister's breast;
She wars not with the mystery
Of time and distance, night and day;
The bonds of our humanity.

Her joy is like an instinct, joy
Of kitten, bird, or summer fly;
She dances, runs without an aim,
She chatters in her ecstasy.

Her brother now takes up the note,
And echoes back his sister's glee;
They hug the infant in my arms,
As if to force his sympathy.

Then, settling into fond discourse,
We rested in the garden bower;
While sweetly shone the evening sun
In his departing hour.

We told o'er all that we had done,-
Our rambles by the swift brook's side
Far as the willow-skirted pool,
Where two fair swans together glide.
We talked of change, of winter gone,
Of green leaves on the hawthorn spray,
Of birds that build their nests and sing,
And all "since Mother went away!
To her these tales they will repeat,
To her our new-born tribes will show,
The goslings green, the ass's colt,
The lambs that in the meadow go.

-But, see, the evening star comes forth!
To bed the children must depart;

A moment's heaviness they feel,
A sadness at the heart :

"Tis gone-and in a merry fit
They run up stairs in gamesome race ;
I, too, infected by their mood,

I could have joined the wanton chase.

Five minutes past-and, O the change!
Asleep upon their beds they lie;

Their busy limbs in perfect rest,
And closed the sparkling eye.

1807.

THE COTTAGER TO HER INFANT.

BY DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

The days are cold, the nights are long,
The north-wind sings a doleful song ;
Then hush again upon my breast;
All merry things are now at rest,
Save thee, my pretty Love!

The kitten sleeps upon the hearth,
The crickets long have ceased their mirth;

There's nothing stirring in the house

Save one wee, hungry, nibbling mouse,

Then why so busy thou?

Nay! start not at that sparkling light;
'Tis but the moon that shines so bright
On the window pane bedropped with rain:
Then little Darling! sleep again,

And wake when it is day.

1805.

TO A REDBREAST-(IN SICKNESS.)

BY SARAH HUTCHINSON.

[In 1836, Sarah Hutchinson, his wife's sister, and dear to him as an own sister, was taken away, and carried to Grasmere churchyard.—Memoirs of Wordsworth, Vol. I.]

Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay,

And at my casement sing,

Though it should prove a farewell lay
And this our parting spring.

Though I, alas! may ne'er enjoy
The promise in thy song;

A charm, that thought can not destroy,
Doth to thy strain belong.

Methinks that in my dying hour

Thy song would still be dear,
And with a more than earthly power
My passing Spirit cheer.

Then, little Bird, this boon confer,

Come, and my requiem sing,

Nor fail to be the harbinger

Of everlasting Spring.

CUMBERLAND

BORDER BALLADS.

For why?—the good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,

That they should take, who have the power,
And they should keep who can.-WORDSWORTH.

HUGHIE THE GRÆME.

[This ballad originally appeared in "The Scots Musical Museum." It was sent by Burns, whose copy was obtained from oral tradition. Other readings will be found in Ritson's "Ancient Songs" and Scott's "Border Minstrelsy."]

UR lords are to the mountains gane,

A-hunting o' the fallow deer,

And they hae grippet Hughie Græme,

For stealing o' the Bishop's mare.

And they hae tied him hand and foot,
And led him up thro' Carlisle town;
The lads and lasses met him there,

Cried, "Hughie Græme, thou art a loun."
"O lowse my right hand free," he says,
"And put my braid sword in the same,
He's no in Carlisle town this day,

Daur tell the tale to Hughie Græme."