The outward shows of sky and earth,

Of hill and valley he has viewed ;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,
The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he weak, both man and boy,
Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy
The things which others understand.

Come hither in thy hour of strength; Come, weak as is a breaking wave! Here stretch thy body at full length; Or build thy house upon this grave.

TO THE SPADE OF A FRIEND,

(AN AGRICULTURIST.)

COMPOSED WHILE WE WERE LABOURING TOGETHER IN HIS PLEASURE-GROUND.

SPADE! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands, [side, And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont's Thou art a tool of honour in my hands; I press thee, through the yielding soil, with pride.

Rare master has it been thy lot to know; Long hast thou served a man to reason true;

[low, Whose life combines the best of high and The toiling many and the resting few;

Health, meekness, ardour, quietness secure,
And industry of body and of mind;
And elegant enjoyments, that are pure
As nature is ;-too pure to be refined.

Here often hast thou heard the poet sing In concord with his rive nurmuring by; Or in some silent field, while timid spring Is yet uncheered by other minstrelsy.

Who shall inherit thee when death has laid Low in the darksome cell thine own dear lord?

That man will have a trophy, humble spade! A trophy nobler than a conqueror's sword!

If he be one that feels, with skill to part False praise from true, or greater from the less,

Thee will he welcome to his hand and heart, Thou monument of peaceful happiness!

With thee he will not dread a toilsome day, His powerful servant, his inspiring mate! And, when thou art past service, worn away, Thee a surviving soul shall consecrate.

His thrift thy uselessness will never scorn; An heirloom in his cottage wilt thou be:High will he hang thee up, and will adorn His rustic chimney with the last of thee!

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 turned 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.

TO A YOUNG LADY,

WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING LONG WALKS IN THE

COUNTRY.

DEAR child of nature, let them rail!
There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold,

Where thou, a wife and friend, shalt sce

Thy own delightful days, and be
A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd-boy,
And treading among flowers of joy,
That at no season fade,

Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing
A woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee when gray-hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.

LINES

WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

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.

To her fair works did nature link

The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played;
Their thoughts I cannot measure :-
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

From Heaven if this belief be sent,
If such be nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN,

WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS
CONCERNED.

IN the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old man dwells, a little man,
"Tis said he once was tall.
Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheel:
Is blooming as a cherry.

Worn out by hunting feats-bereft
By time of friends and kindred, see!
Old Simon to the world is left
In liveried poverty.

His master's dead, -and no one now
Dwells in the Hall of Ivor;

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
He is the sole survivor.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When echo bandied, round and round,
The halloo of Simon Lee.

In those proud days, he little cared
For husbandry or tillage;

To blither tasks did Simon rouse
The sleepers of the village.

He all the country could outrun,

Could leave both man and horse behind; And often, ere the chase was done,

He reeled and was stone-blind.

And still there's something in the world At which his heart rejoices;

For when the chiming hounds are out, He dearly loves their voices !

But he is lean and he is sick,
His body, dwindled and awry,
Rests upon ankles swoln and thick,
His legs are thin and dry.
One prop he has, an only one,
His wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village common.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.

This scrap of land he from the heath
Inclosed when he was stronger;
"But what," saith he, "avails the land
Which I can till no longer?"

Oft, working by her husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
Alas! 'tis very little-all

Which they can do between them.

Few months of life has he in store,
As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.
My gentle reader, I perceive
How patiently you've waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle reader! you would find
A tale in everything.

What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it :

It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This old man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour,
That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

ON his morning rounds the master
Goes to learn how all things fare;
Searches pasture after pasture,
Sheep and cattle eyes with care;
And for silence or for talk,

He hath comrades in his walk;
Four dogs, each pair of different breed,
Distinguished two for scent, and two for
speed.

See a hare before him started!
Off they fly in earnest chase;
Every dog is eager-hearted,
All the four are in the race :
And the hare whom they pursue,
Hath an instinct what to do ;
Her hope is near: no turn she makes;
But, like an arrow, to the river takes.

Deep the river was, and crusted
Thinly by a one night's frost ;
But the nimble hare hath trusted
To the ice, and safely crost;
She hath crost, and without heed
All are following at full speed,
When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread,
Breaks-and the greyhound, Dart, is over
head!

Better fate have Prince and Swallow-
See them cleaving to the sport !
Music has no heart to follow,
Little Music, she stops short.
She hath neither wish nor heart,
Hers is now another part:

A loving creature she, and brave !

A tender sympathy, which did thee bind

I grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past;

And willingly have laid thee here at last : For thou hadst lived, till everything that cheers

In thee had yielded to the weight of years;
Extreme old age had wasted thee away;
And left thee but a glimmering of the day;
Thy ears were deaf; and feeble were thy
knees,

I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze,
Too weak to stand against its sportive breath,
And ready for the gentlest stroke of death.
It came, and we were glad; yet tears were
shed;
[wert dead;
Both man and woman wept when thou
Not only for a thousand thoughts that were,
Old household thoughts, in which thou
hadst thy share ;
[thee,
But for some precious boons vouchsafed to
Found scarcely any where in like degree!
For love, that comes to all-the holy sense,
Best gift of God-in thee was most intense;
A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind,

Yea, for thy fellow-brutes in thee we saw The soul of love, love's intellectual law :Hence, if we wept, it was not done in shame; [came, Our tears from passion and from reason And, therefore, shalt thou be an honoured name !

In the school of is a tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the names of the several persons who have been schoolmasters there since the foundation of the school, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite one of those names the author wrote the following lines :

IF nature, for a favourite child
In thee hath tempered so her clay
That every hour thy heart runs wild
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears
In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.
When through this little wreck of fame,
Cipher and syllable! thine eye
Has travelled down to Matthew's name,
Pause with no common sympathy.

And, if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed:
For Matthew a request I make
Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,
Is silent as a standing pool :
Far from the chimney's merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.

The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
Were tears of light, the dew of gladness.

Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up--
He felt with spirit so profound.

Thou soul of God's best earthly mould!
Thou happy soul! and can it be
That these two words of glittering gold
Are all that must remain of thee?

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS.

WE walked along, while bright and red U prose the morning sun :

And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said, "The will of God be done!"

A village schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering gray;
As blithe a man as you could see
On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,
And by the steaming rills,

We travelled merrily, to pass
A day among the hills.

"Our work," said I, "was well begun ;
Then, from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,
So sad a sigh has brought?"

A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:

Yon cloud with that long purple cleft Brings fresh into my mind A day like this which I have left Full thirty years behind.

"And just above yon slope of corn
Such colours, and no other,
Were in the sky, that April morn,
Of this the very brother.

"With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

And, coming to the church, stopped short Beside my daughter's grave.

"Nine summers had she scarcely seen, The pride of all the vale;

And then she sang ;-she would have been A very nightingale.

"Six feet in earth my Emma lay; And yet I loved her more,

For so it seemed, than till that day I e'er had loved before.

"And turning from her grave, I met, Beside the churchyard yew,

A blooming girl, whose hair was wet With points of morning dew,

"A basket on her head she bare;
Her brow was smooth and white :
To see a child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!

"No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripped with foot so free;
She seemed as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

"There came from me a sigh of pain Which I could ill confine;

I looked at her, and looked again :
And did not wish her mine."

Matthew is in his grave, yet now,
Methinks, I see him stand,
As at that moment, with a bough
Of wilding in his hand.

"Or of the church clock and the chimes Sing here beneath the shade,

That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made!"

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed,
The spring beneath the tree;
And thus the dear old man replied,
The gray-haired man of glee :

"Down to the vale this water steers,
How merrily it goes!

"Twill murmur on a thousand years, And flow as now it flows.

"And here, on this delightful day,
I cannot choose but think

How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.