OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I cross'd the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day,
The solitary child.
No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!
You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.
"To-night will be a stormy night-
You to the town must go;
And take a lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow."
That, father, will I gladly do! 'Tis scarcely afternoon
The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon."
At this the father raised his hook
And snapp'd a faggot band;
He plied his work ;-and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.
Not blither in the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.
The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down:
And many a hill did Lucy climb,
But never reach'd the town.
The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.
At daybreak on a hill they stood
That overlook'd the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.
And, turning homeward, now they cried,
"In Heaven we all shall meet!"
When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.
Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They track'd the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone wall:
And then an open field they cross'd:
The marks were still the same;
They track'd them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.
They follow'd from the snowy bank
The footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none!
-Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.
O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.
RISE, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross:
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost;
But clear and artless, pouring through the plain
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
"The Man of Ross!" each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread:
He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where Age and Want sit smiling at the gate;
Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blest,
The young who labour and the old who rest.
Is any sick? The Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives.
Is there a variance? Enter but his door,
Balked are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now a useless race.
Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
Oh say, what sums that generous hand supply?
What mines, to swell that boundless charity?
Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear,
This man possessed-five hundred pounds a year!
Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your
blaze!
Ye little stars! hide your diminished rays.
And what! no monument, inscription, stone? His race, his form, his name almost unknown?
Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame, Will never mark the marble with his name: Go, search it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor makes all the history; Enough, that virtue filled the space between; Proved, by the ends of being, to have been.
FAIR clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blessed isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to loneliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the eastern wave:
And if at times the transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air
That wakes and wafts the odours there!
For there-the Rose o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,
The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by wings, unchill'd by snows,
Far from the winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given
In softest incense back to heaven;
And grateful yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that love might share,
And many a grotto, meant for rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in shelter'd cove below
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar
Is heard, and seen the evening star;
Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night prowlers on the prey,
And turn to groans his roundelay.
Strange that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for gods, a dwelling-place,
And every charm and grace hath mix'd
Within the paradise she fix'd,
There man, enamour'd of distress,
Should mar it into wilderness,
And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower
That tasks not one laborious hour;
Nor claims the culture of his hand
To bloom along the fairy land,
But springs as to preclude his care,
And sweetly woos him-but to spare!
Strange that where all is peace beside,
There passion riots in her pride,
And lust and rapine wildly reign
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