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A thousand lambs are on the rocks,
All newly born; both earth and sky
Keep jubilee; and more than all,
Those boys with their green coronal,
They never hear the cry,

That plaintive cry! which up the hill
Comes from the depths of Dungeon-Ghyll.

IV.

Said Walter, leaping from the ground, "Down to the stump of

yon old

yew

We'll for our whistles run a race."

-Away the shepherds flew.

They leapt they ran-and when they came Right opposite to Dungeon-Ghyll, Seeing that he should lose the prize, "Stop!" to his comrade Walter criesJames stopped with no good will: Said Walter then, "your task is here, "Twill keep you working half a year.

V.

"Now cross where I shall cross-come on,

And follow me where I shall lead"

The other took him at his word,

But did not like the deed.

It was a spot, which you may see

If ever you to Langdale go:

Into a chasm a mighty block

Hath fallen, and made a bridge of rocka

The gulf is deep below;

And in a basin black and small

Receives a lofty waterfall.

VI.

With staff in hand across the cleft

The challenger began his march;

And now, all eyes and feet, hath gained

The middle of the arch.

When list! he hears a piteous moan-
Again!-his heart within him dies-
His pulse is stopped, his breath is lost,
He totters, pale as any ghost,
And, looking down, he spies
A lamb, that in the pool is pent
Within that black and frightful rent.

VII.

The lamb had slipped into the stream,
And safe without a bruise or wound
The cataract had borne him down
Into the gulf profound.

His dam had seen him when he fell,
She saw him down the torrent borne;
And, while with all a mother's love
She from the lofty rocks above
Sent forth a cry forlorn,

The lamb, still swimming round and round,
Made answer to that plaintive sound.

VIII.

When he had learnt what thing it was,
That sent this rueful cry; I ween,
The boy recovered heart, and told
The sight which he had seen.
Both gladly now deferred their task;
Nor was there wanting other aid,—
A Poet, one who loves the brooks
Far better than the sages' books,
By chance had thither strayed;
And there the helpless lamb he found
By those huge rocks encompassed round.

IX.

He drew it gently from the pool,

And brought it forth into the light:

The shepherds met him with his charge,

An unexpected sight!

Into their arms the lamb they took,

Said they, "He's neither maimed nor scarred.”

Then up the steep ascent they hied,

And placed him at his mother's side;

And gently did the Bard

Those idle shepherd-boys upbraid,

And bade them better mind their trade.

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH:

FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.

(This Extract is reprinted from "THE FRIEND.")

WISDOM and spirit of the universe!

Thou soul, that art the eternity of thought!
And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion; not in vain,

By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,—
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With life and nature; purifying thus

The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such discipline
Both pain and fear,-until we recognise
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me
With stinted kindness. In November days
When vapours, rolling down the vallies, made
A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods
At noon;
and mid the calm of summer nights,
When, by the margin of the trembling lake,
Beneath the gloomy hills, I homeward went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine:
'Twas mine among the fields both day and night,
And by the waters all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed,
I heeded not the summons:-happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me

It was a time of rapture!-Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six-I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for its home.-All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase

And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The pack loud-bellowing, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle: with the din
Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay,-or sportively

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cross the bright reflection of a star,

That gleamed upon the ice; and oftentimes,

When we had given our bodies to the wind,

And all the shadowy banks on either side

Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once

Have I, reclining back upon my heels,

Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs

Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round!

Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a summer sca.

S

TO H. C.

SIX YEARS OLD.

O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought;
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
Thou fairy voyager! that dost float

In such clear water, that thy boat

May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream:
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,

Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;

O blessed vision! happy child!

That art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when pain might be thy guest,

Lord of thy house and hospitality;

And grief, uneasy lover! never rest

But when she sate within a touch of thee.

Oh! too industrious folly!

Oh! vain and causeless melancholy!

Nature will either end thee quite;

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,

Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.

What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,

Not framed to undergo unkindly shocks;

Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem

that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.

POEMS

ON

THE NAMING OF PLACES.

ADVERTISEMENT.

By persons resident in the country and attached to rural objects, many places will be found unnamed or of unknown names, where little incidents have occurred, or feelings been experienced, which will have given to such places a private and peculiar interest. From a wish to give some sort of record to such incidents, or renew the gratification of such feelings, names have been given to places by the author and some of his friends, and the following poems written in consequence.

I.

It was an April morning: fresh and clear

The rivulet, delighting in its strength,

Ran with a young man's speed; and yet the voice

Of waters which the Winter had supplied

Was softened down into a vernal tone.

The spirit of enjoyment and desire,

And hopes and wishes, from all living things
Went circling, like a multitude of sounds.
The budding groves appeared as if in haste
To spur the steps of June; as if their shades
Of various green were hind'rances that stood
Between them and their object: yet, meanwhile,
There was such deep contentment in the air
That every naked ash, and tardy tree

Yet leafless, seemed as though the countenance
With which it looked on this delightful day
Were native to the Summer.-Up the brook
I roamed in the confusion of my heart,
Alive to all things and forgetting all.
At length I to a sudden turning came
In this continuous glen, where down a rock
The stream, so ardent in its course before,
Sent forth such sallies of glad sound, that all
Which I till then had heard, appeared the voico
Of common pleasure: beast and bird, the lamb,
The shepherd's dog, the linnet and the thrush
Vied with this waterfall, and made a song
Which, while I listened, seemed like the wild growth,
Or like some natural produce of the air,

That could not cease to be. Green leaves were here;
But 'twas the foliage of the rocks, the birch,
The yew, the holly, and the bright green thorn,
With hanging islands of resplendent furze :
And on a summit, distant a short space,

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