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"And where are they? I pray you tell."
She answer'd, "Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

"Two of us in the churchyard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And in the churchyard-cottage, I

Dwell near them, with my mother."

"You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,

Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell,
Sweet maid, how this may be?"

Then did the little maid reply,
"Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the churchyard lie,
Beneath the churchyard tree."

"You run about, my little maid,
Your limbs they are alive;

If two are in the churchyard laid,
Then ye are only five."

"Their graves are green, they may be seen," The little maid replied,

"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side.

"My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem,
And there upon the ground I sit—
I sit and sing to them.

"And often after sunset, sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

"The first that died was little Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain,
And then she went away.

"So in the churchyard she was laid;
And when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we play'd-

My brother John and I.

"And when the ground was white with snow, And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side."

"How many are you then," said I,

"If they two are in heaven ?"

The little maiden did reply,

"O master, we are seven."

"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"

'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven !"

OUR IMMORTALITY

Intimations of Immortality from recollections of early childhood.

The Child is Father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse doth all she can
To make her foster-child, her inmate man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

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1"In the mighty effort of his imagination- | the most impenetrable of all mysteries,-the the greatest ode in the English language,-the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, dwelling upon the heavenly innocence of childhood,-a feeling in harmony with the Savior's words; and then, raising the human soul above its material life, he has cast a ray of poetry upon

origin of the soul before its lodgment in the body. Thus sublimely asserting our immortality, he heeds this earth as no more than ministering to the spirit that has wandered from some better home into this mortal life:"Our birth," &c.-HENRY REED.

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted forever by the eternal mind,-
Mighty prophet! seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy immortality

Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

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But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,

Are yet a master light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal silence: truths that wake,

To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
Nor man nor boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy !

Hence, in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers
Little we see in nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.

SCORN NOT THE SONNET.

Scorn not the Sonnet: Critic, you have frown'd,
Mindless of its just honors: with this key
Shakspeare unlock'd his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
Camöens soothed with it an exile's grief;
The sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd from faery-land

To struggle through dark ways; and, when a darup Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand

The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!

MILTON.

Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea,
Pure as the naked heavens-majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself didst lay.

TO THOMAS CLARKSON, On the finaL PASSING Of the bill
FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE, MARCH, 1807.

Clarkson it was an obstinate hill to climb:
How toilsome-nay, how dire it was, by thee
Is known,-by none, perhaps, so feelingly;
But thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime,
Didst first lead forth this pilgrimage sublime,

Hast heard the constant voice its charge repeat,
Which, out of thy young heart's oracular seat,
First roused thee. O true yoke-fellow of time,
With unabating effort, see, the palm

Is won, and by all nations shall be worn!
The bloody writing is forever torn,

And thou henceforth shalt have a good man's calm,

A great man's happiness; thy zeal shall find

Repose at length, firm friend of human kind!

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, 1762-1850.

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, son of the Rev. William T. Bowles, vicar of King'sSutton, Northamptonshire, was born at that place on the 25th of September, 1762. In 1776 he was placed on the Wykeham foundation at Winchester,1 under Dr. Joseph Warton. Naturally a timid, diffident boy, he ever expressed a grateful obligation to the kind encouragement he received from that eminent man, who sympathized very cordially with any manifestation of poetic talents. During his last year at Winchester, he was at the head of the school, and in consequence of this distinction he was elected, in 1781, a scholar of Trinity College, Oxford. In 1783 he gained the chancellor's prize for Latin verse, the subject being Calpe Obsessa, The Siege of Gibraltar. In 1789 he published twenty of his beautiful sonnets, which were followed in the same year by Verses to John Howard, and in 1790 by The Grave of Howard. These and other poetical works were collected in 1796, and so well were they received that repeated editions were published. In 1797 he was married to Magdalen, daughter of the Rev. Charles Wake, prebendary of Westminster. She died some years before him, leaving no children. Having entered the ministry, he obtained the vicarage of Bremhill3 in 1805, which was his constant residence for forty years, during which long period he had watched zealously

1 Winchester, about sixty-seven miles southwest from London, is one of the oldest cities of England. It became the capital of the country when it was united under the sway of Egbert. Here lie the bones of Alfred the Great; here, in 1002, commenced the horrid massacre of the Danes; here William the Conqueror built a castle and palace; here King John ratified his ignominious submission to the Pope; and here was the scene of the disgraceful trial of Sir Walter Raleigh. Indeed, it is full of memorable historic associations.

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The most interesting building here is Wyke-
ham College, which takes its name from Wil-
liam of Wykeham, originally a poor boy of
the neighboring town of Wykeham, who was
educated in the old grammar-school of Win-
chester, on the very spot where the college
now stands. This was begun in 1387, and com-
pleted in six years. It has a large revenue,
and accommodates about one hundred boys.
2 See his life at p. 17.

3 A town in Wiltshire, about seventy-seven miles west from London.

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