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. VI. SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN: 1798. WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED. In the sweet shire of Cardigan, Full five-and-thirty years he lived A running huntsman merry; No man like him the horn could sound, 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 For when the chiming hounds are out, He dearly loves their voices ! But O the heavy change! - bereft Of health, strength, 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, - And he is lean and he is sick; His body, dwindled and awry, One prop he has, and only one : Lives with him, near the waterfall, Beside their moss-grown hut of clay, This scrap of land he from the heath Oft, working by her Husband's side, And, though you with your utmost skill From labor could not wean them, "T is little, very little, all That 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 O Reader! had you in your mind What more I have to say is short, It is no tale; but, should you think, One summer-day I chanced to see A stump of rotten wood. The mattock tottered in his hand; So vain was his endeavor, That at the root of the old tree He might have worked for ever. "You 're overtasked, good Simon Lee, I struck, and with a single blow At which the poor old Man so long The tears into his eyes were brought, - I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning. 1798. VII. WRITTEN IN GERMANY, ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY. The Reader must be apprised, that the stoves in North Germany generally have the impression of a galloping horse upon them, this being part of the Brunswick Arms. A PLAGUE on your languages, German and Norse! And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse See that Fly, a disconsolate creature! perhaps A child of the field or the grove; And, sorry for him! the dull, treacherous heat |