But only give some plain directions
To guide your speech and your affections.
Say not you love a roasted fowl,
But you may love a screaming owl,
And, if you can, the unwieldy toad
That crawls from his secure abode
Within the mossy garden wall
When evening dews begin to fall.
Oh mark the beauty of his eye:
What wonders in that circle lie!
So clear, so bright, our father said
He wears a jewel in his head!
And when, upon some showery day,
Into a path or public way

A frog leaps out from bordering grass,'
Startling the timid as they pass,
Do you observe him, and endeavor
To take the intruder into favor.
Learning from him to find a reason
For a light heart in a dull season.

And

you may love him in the pool,
That is for him a happy school,
In which he swims as taught by nature,
Fit pattern for a human creature,
Glancing amid the water bright,
And sending upward sparkling light.

Nor blush if o'er your heart be stealing
A love for things that have no feeling:
The springs first rose by you espied
May fill your breast with joyful pride;
And you may love the strawberry-flower,
And love the strawberry in its bower;
But when the fruit, so often praised
For beauty, to your lip is raised,
Say not you love the delicate treat,
But like it, enjoy it, and thankfully eat.

Long may you love your pensioner mouse, Though one of a tribe that torment the house: Nor dislike for her cruel sport the cat, Deadly foe both of mouse and rat ; Remember she follows the law of her kind, And Instinct is neither wayward nor blind. Then think of her beautiful gliding form, Her tread that would scarcely crush a worm, And her soothing song by the winter fire, Soft as the dying throb of the lyre.

I would not circumscribe your love: It may soar with the eagle and brood with the dove,

May pierce the earth with the patient mole,
Or track the hedgehog to his hole.
Loving and liking are the solace of life,
Rock the cradle of joy, smooth the death
bed of strife.

You love your father and your mother,
Your grown-up and your baby-brother;

With bounteous hand beneath a cottage-roof
To you accorded, never be withdrawn,
Nor for the world's best promises renounced.
Most soothing was it for a welcome Friend,
Fresh from the crowded city, to behold
That lonely union, privacy so deep,
Such calm employments, such entire content.
So when the rain is over, the storm laid,
A pair of herons oft-times have I seen,
Upon a rocky islet, side by side,
Drying their feathers in the sun, at ease:
And so, when night with grateful gloom had
fällen,

Two glow-worms in such nearness that they shared,

As seemed, their soft self-satisfying light, Each with the other, on the dewy ground, Where He that made them blesses their

XXXVII.

THE REDBREAST.

(SUGGESTED IN A WESTMORELAND COTTAGE.)

DRIVEN in by Autumn's sharpening air
From half-stripped woods and pastures bare,
Brisk Robin seeks a kindlier home:
Not like a beggar is he come,
But enters as a looked-for guest,
Confiding in his ruddy breast,
As if it were a natural shield
Charged with a blazon on the field,
Due to that good and pious deed
Of which we in the Ballad read.
But pensive fancies putting by,
And wild-wood sorrows, speedily
He plays the expert ventriloquist;
And, caught by glimpses now-now missed,
Puzzles the listener with a doubt
If the soft voice he throws about
Comes from within doors or without!
Was ever such a sweet confusion,
Sustained by delicate illusion?
He's at your elbow-to your feeling
The notes are from the floor or ceiling;
And there's a riddle to be guessed,
Till you have marked his heaving chest,
And busy throat whose sink and swell
Betray the Elf that loves to dwell
In Robin's bosom, as a chosen cell.

Heart-pleased we smile upon the Bird
If seen, and with like pleasure stirred
Commend him, when he's only heard.
But small and fugitive our gain
Compared with hers who long hath lain,
With languid limbs and patient head
Reposing on a lone sick-bed;
Where now, she daily hears a strain
That cheats her of too busy cares.
Eases her pain, and helps her prayers,
And who but this dear Bird beguiled
The fever of that pale-faced Child;
Now cooling, with his passing wing,
Her forehead, like a breeze of Spring:
Recalling now, with descant soft
Shed round her pillow from aloft,
Sweet thoughts of angels hovering nigh,
And the invisible sympathy

Of" Matthew, Mark, ard Luke, and John,
Blessing the bed she lies upon?" *

And sometimes, just as listening ends
In slumber, with the cadence blends
A dream of that low-warbled hymn
Which old folk, fondly pleased to trim
Lamps of faith, now burning dim,
Say that the Cherubs carved in stone,
When clouds gave way at dead of night
And the ancient church was filled with
light,

Used to sing in heavenly tone,
Above and round the sacred places
They guard, with winged baby-faces.

Thrice happy Creature! in all lands
Nurtured by hospitable hands:
Free entrance to this cot has he,
Entrance and exit both yet free;
And, when the keen unruffled weather
That thus brings man and bird together,
Shall with its pleasantness be past,
And casement closed and door made fast,
To keep at bay the howling blast,
He needs not fear the season's rage,
For the whole house is Robin's cage.
Whether the bird flit here or there,
O'er table lilt, or perch on chair,
Though some may frown and make a stir
To scare him as a trespasser,
And he belike will flinch or start,
Good friends he has to take his part;
One chiefly, who with voice and look
Pleads for him from the chimney-nook,
Where sits the Dame, and wears away
Her long and vacant holiday;
With images about her heart,
Reflected from the years gone by
On human nature's second infancy.
1834.

XXXVIII.

HER EYES ARE WILD.

I.

HER eyes are wild, her head is bare,
The sun has burnt her coal-black hair;
Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,
And she came far from over the main.
She has a baby on her arm,
Or else she were alone:
And underneath the hay-stack warm,
And on the greenwood stone,
She talked and sung the woods among,
And it was in the English tongue.

II.

"Sweet babe! they say that I am mad, But nay, my heart is far too glad;

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 seemed eager to urge on
The steps of June; as if their various hues
Were only hindrances that stood between
Them and their object: but, meanwhile,
prevailed

Such an entire contentment in the air
That every naked ash, and tardy tree
Yet leafless, showed as if the countenance
With which it looked on this delightful day
Were native to the summer.-Up the rook
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

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,

By any who should look beyond the dell, A single mountain-cottage might be seen. I gazed and gazed, and to myself I said, "Our thoughts at least are ours; and this wild nook,

My EMMA, I will dedicate to thee."

-Soon did the spot become my other home,

My dwelling, and my out-of-doors abode. And, of the shepherds who have seen me there,

To whom I sometimes in our idle talk
Have told this fancy, two or three, perhaps,
Years after we are gone and in our graves,
When they have cause to speak of this wild
place,

May call it by the name of EMMA'S DELL. 1800.

II.

TO JOANNA.

AMID the smoke of cities did you pass
The time of early youth; and there you
learned,

From years of quiet industry, to love
The living Beings by your own fireside,
With such a strong devotion that your heart
Is slow to meet the sympathies of them
Who look upon the hills with tenderness,
And make dear friendships with the streams
and groves.

Yet we, who are transgressors in this kind,
Dwelling retired in our simplicity

Among the woods and fields, we love you well,

Joanna! and I guess, since you have been So distant from us now for two long years, That you will gladly listen to discourse, However trivial, if you thence be taught That they, with whom you once were happy,

talk

Familiarly of you and of old times.