A CALM EVENING.

Ir is a beauteous Evening, calm and free:
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven is on the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder-everlastingly.

Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear'st untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature therefore is not less divine:
Thou liest "in Abraham's bosom" all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

WORDSWORTH.

Now swarms the village o'er the jovial mead: The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil, Healthful and strong; full as the summer rose Blown by prevailing suns, the ruddy maid, Her kindled graces burning o'er her cheek. E'en stooping age is here; and infant hands Trail the long rake, or, with the fragrant load O'ercharg'd, amid the kind oppression roll. Wide flies the tedded* grain; all in a row Advancing broad or wheeling round the field, They spread the breathing harvest to the sun, That throws refreshful round a rural smell; Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground, And drive the dusky wave along the mead, The russet haycock rises thick behind, In order gay; while heard from dale to dale, Waking the breeze, resounds the blended voice Of happy labour, love, and social glee.

THOMSON.

* Tedded, tossed, or spread about in the sun; to tede grass.

THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR.

I SAW an aged Beggar in my walk;

And he was seated by the highway side,
On a low structure of rude masonry

Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road
May thence remount at ease. The aged man
Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and, from a bag

All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one,
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,

Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate his food in solitude:
And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,
Not venturing yet to pick their destined meal,
Approached within the length of half his staff.
Him from my childhood have I known; and then
He was so old, he seems not older now.

He travels on, a solitary man,

His age has no companion.

Thus, from day to day,

Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground,

He plies his weary journey.

Poor Traveller!

His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet

Disturb the summer dust; he is so still
In look and motion, that the cottage curs,
Ere he have passed the door, will turn away,
Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,
The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,
And urchins newly breeched-all pass him by:
Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.