And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy; Deep thought oft seem'd to fix his infant eye:

Dainties he heeded not, nor gaude, nor toy,

Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy.

Silent, when glad; affectionate, though shy;

And now his look was most demurely sad,

And now he laugh'd aloud, yet none knew why;

The neighbors star'd and sigh'd, yet bless'd the lad;

Some deem'd him wondrous wise, and some believ'd him mad.

But why should I his childish feats display?

Concourse, and noise, and toil he ever fled;

Nor car'd to mingle in the clamorous fray

Of squabbling imps, but to the forest sped,

Or roam'd at large the lonely mountain's head;

Or, where the maze of some bewilder'd

stream

To deep untrodden groves his footsteps led,

There would he wander wild, till
Phoebus' beam,

Shot from the western cliff, releas'd
the weary team.

Th' exploit of strength, dexterity, or speed,

To him nor vanity nor joy could bring:

His heart, from cruel sport estrang'd, would bleed

To work the woe of any living thing, By trap or net, by arrow or by sling;

These he detested, those he scorn'd to wield;

He wish'd to be the guardian, not the king,

Tyrant far less, or traitor of the field: And sure the sylvan reign unbloody joy might yield.

Lo! where the stripling, wrapt in wonder, roves

Beneath the precipice o'erhung with

Where twilight loves to linger for a while;

And now he faintly kens the bounding fawn,

And villager abroad at early toil.
But lo! the sun appears! and heaven,
earth, ocean, smile.

And oft the craggy cliff he lov'd to climb,

When all in mist the world below was lost:

What dreadful pleasure! there to stand sublime,

Like shipwreck'd mariner on desert coast,

And view th' enormous waste of vapor tost

In billows, lengthening to th' horizon round,

Now scoop'd in gulfs, with mountains now emboss'd!

And hear the voice of mirth and song rebound,

Flocks, herds, and waterfalls,along the hoar profound!

In truth he was a strange and wayward wight,

Fond of each gentle, and each dreadful scene:

In darkness, and in storm, he found delight;

Nor less, than when on ocean-wave

"Your flowers, your verdure, and your balmy gloom,

Of late so grateful in the hour of drought!

Why do the birds, that song and rapture brought

To all your bowers, their mansions now forsake?

Ah! why has fickle chance this ruir wrought?

For now the storm howls mournful through the brake,

And the dead foliage flies in many a shapeless flake.

"Where now the rill, melodious, pure, and cool,

And meads, with life, and mirth, and beauty crown'd!

Ah! see, th' unsightly slime, and sluggish pool,

Have all the solitary vale imbrown'd; Fled each fair form, and mute each melting sound,

The raven croaks forlorn on naked spray :

And, hark! the river, bursting every mound,

Down the vale thunders; and with wasteful sway,

Uproots the grove, and rolls the shatter'd rocks away.

"Yet such the destiny of all on earth; So flourishes and fades majestic man!

Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth,

And fostering gales a while the nursling fan:

O smile, ye heavens, serene; ye mil dews wan,

Ye blighting whirlwinds, spare his balmy prime,

Nor lessen of his life the little span: Borne on the swift, though silent wings of Time,

Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.

"And be it so. Let those deplore their doom,

O never, never turn away thine ear; Forlorn in this bleak wilderness below, Ah! what were man, should Heaven refuse to hear!

To others do (the law is not severe) What to thyself thou wishest to be done.

Forgive thy foes; and love thy parents dear,

And friends, and native land; nor those alone;

All human weal and woe learn thou to make thine own."

MORNING.

BUT who the melodies of morn can tell? The wild-brook babbling down the mountain side;

The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;

The pipe of early shepherd dim descried

In the lone valley; echoing far and wide

The clamorous horn along the cliffs above;

The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide; The hum of bees, and linnet's lay of love, And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.

The cottage-curs at early pilgrim bark; Crown'd with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings;

The whistling ploughman stalks afield; and, hark!

Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings;

Thro' rustling corn the hare astonish'd springs;

Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour;

The partridge bursts away on whirring wings;

Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower,

And shrill lark carols clear from her

aërial tower.

EDWIN'S FANCIES AT EVENING. WHEN the long-sounding curfew from afar

Loaded with loud lament the lonely gale,

Voung Edwin, lighted by the evening star,

Lingering and listening wander'd down the vale.

There would he dream of graves, and corpses pale;

And ghosts, that to the charnel-dungeon throng,

And drag a length of clanking chain, and wail,

Till silenced by the owl's terrific song, Or blast that shrieks by fits the shuddering aisles along.

Or when the setting moon, in crimson died,

Hung o'er the dark and melancholy deep,

Te haunted stream, remote from man

he hied,

Where Fays of yore their revels wont to keep;

And there let Fancy roam at large, till sleep

A vision brought to his entranced sight. And first, a wildly-murmuring wind 'gan creep

Shrill to his ringing ear; then tapers bright,

O GOD, whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,
Thy mercy in thy justice praise.

The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial light,

Are past the powers of human skill;
But what the Eternal acts is right.