3 Nay! start not at that Figure-there! With legs that move not, if they can, The joyous Woman is the Mate Of him in that forlorn estate! He breathes a subterraneous damp; But bright as Vesper shines her lamp: He is as mute as Jedborough Tower: She jocund as it was of yore, With all its bravery on; in times When all alive with merry chimes, Upon a sun-bright morn of May, It roused the Vale to holiday. I praise thee, Matron! and thy due Is praise, heroic praise, and true! With admiration I behold Thy gladness unsubdued and bold: Ah! see her helpless Charge! enclosed Within himself as seems, composed; To fear of loss, and hope of gain, The strife of happiness and pain, Utterly dead! yet in the guise Of little infants, when their eyes Begin to follow to and fro The persons that before them go, He tracks her motions, quick or slow. Her buoyant spirit can prevail Where common cheerfulness would fail ; The more I looked, I wondered moreAnd, while I scanned them o'er and o'er, Some inward trouble suddenly Broke from the Matron's strong black eyeA remnant of uneasy light, A flash of something over-bright! Nor long this mystery did detain My thoughts; she told in pensive strain So be it!--but let praise ascend To Him who is our lord and friend! Who from disease and suffering Hath called for thee a second spring; Repaid thee for that sore distress By no untimely joyousness; Which makes of thine a blissful state; And cheers thy melancholy Mate! XVI. FLY, some kind Harbinger, to Grasmere-dale! While we have wandered over wood and wild- XVII. THE BLIND HIGHLAND BOY. A TALE TOLD BY THE FIRE-SIDE, AFTER RETURNING TO THE VALE OF GRASMERE. Now we are tired of boisterous joy, Have romped enough, my little Boy! Jane hangs her head upon my breast, And you shall bring your stool and rest; But soon they move with softer pace; Or as the wily sailors erept To seize (while on the Deep it slept) The hapless creature which did dwell Erewhile within the dancing shell, They steal upon their prey. With sound the least that can be made, They follow, more and more afraid, More cautious as they draw more near; But in his darkness he can hear, And guesses their intent. "Leigha-Lei-gha"-he then cried out, "Lai-gha-Lei-gha"-with eager shout; Thus did he cry, and thus did pray, And what he meant was, "Keep away, And leave me to myself!" Alas! and when he felt their hands--- Or melt it into air: So all his dreams that inward light As he had ever known. But hark! a gratulating voice, And then, when he was brought to land, And in the general joy of heart But most of all, his Mother dear, She led him home, and wept amain, Thus, after he had fondly braved And in the lonely Highland dell And how he was preserved. Note. It is recorded in Dampier's Voyages, that a boy. son of the captain of a Man-of-War, seated himself in a Turtle-shell, and floated in it from the shore to his father's ship, which lay at anchor at the distance of half a mile. In deference to the opinion of a Friend, I have substituted such a shell for the less elegant vessel in which my blind Voyager did actually entrust himself to the dangerous current of Loch Leven, as was related to me by an eye-witness. |