Things that I know not of belike to thee are dear,

And dreams of things which thou canst neither see nor hear.

Alas, the mountain-tops that look so green and fair!

I've heard of fearful winds and darkness that come there;

The little brooks that seem all pastime and all play,

When they are angry, roar like lions for their prey

Here thou need'st not dread the raven in the sky;

Night and day thou art safe, our cottage is hard by.

Why bleat so after me? Why pull so at thy chain?

Sleep and at break of day I will come to thee again!"

-As homeward through the lane I went with lazy feet,

This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat;

And it seemed, as I retraced the ballad line by line,

That but half of it was hers, and one half of it was mine.

Again, and once again, did I repeat the

sel must belong,

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 in-
agery;

O blessed vision! happy child!
Thou 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 the touch of thee.
O too industricus folly!

O 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,

Ill fitted to sustain 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.
1802.

spake with such a tone,

That I almost received her heart into my

own."

1800.

XV.

TO H. C.

SIX YEARS OLD.

O THOU ! brought; Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,

whose fancies from afar are

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

XVI.

OF NATURAL OBJECTS

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGthen, ING 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FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.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 starlight, 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;

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, homeward Ï went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine;
Mine was it in 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-1 wheeled about,

Proud and exulting like an untired horse, That cares not for his 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-chiming, and the hunted hare.

So through the darkness and the cold we flew,

And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far-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 cut across the reflex of a star;
Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes.
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness. spin-
ning still

The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have 1, 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 sea. 1799.

XVII.

THE LONGEST DAY.

DDRESSED TO MY DAUGHTER.

LET us quit the leafy arbor,
And the torrent murmuring by;
For the sun is in his harbor,
Weary of the open sky.

Evening now unbinds the fetters
Fashioned by the glowing light;
All that breathe are thankful debtors
To the harbinger of night.

Yet by some grave thoughts attended
Eve renews her calm career :
For the day that now is ended,
Is the longest of the year.

Dora! sport, as now thou sportest,
On this platform, light and free;
Take thy bliss, while longest, shortest,
Are indifferent to thee!

Who would check the happy teeling
That inspires the linnet's song?
Who would stop the swallow, wheeling
On her pinions swift and strong?

Yet at this impressive season,
Words which tenderness can speak
From the truths of homely reason
Might exalt the loveliest cheek;

Be thou wiser, youthful Maiden!
And when thy decline shall come,
Let not flowers, or boughs fruit-laden
Hide the knowledge of thy doom.

Now, even now, ere wrapped in slumber,
Fix thine eyes upon the sea

That absorbs time, space and number;
Look thou to Eternity!

Follow thou the flowing river
On whose breast are thither borne
All deceived, and each deceiver,
Through the gates of night and morn;

Through the year's successive portals;
Through the bounds which many a star
Marks, not mindless of frail mortals,
When his light returns from far.

Thus when thou with Time hast travelled
Toward the mighty gulf of things,
And the mazy stream unravelled
With thy best imaginings;

Think, if thou on beauty leanest,
Think how pitiful that stay,
Did not virtue give the meanest
Charms superior to decay.

Duty, like a strict preceptor,
Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown
Choose her thistle for thy sceptre
While youth's roses are thy crown.

Grasp it, if thou shrink and tremble,
Fairest damsel of the green,
Thou wilt lack the only symbol
That proclaims a genuine queen!

And ensures those palms of honor Which selected spirits wear, Bending low before the Donor, Lord of heaven's unchanging year! 1817.

XVIII.

THE NORMAN BOY.

HIGH on a broad unfertile tract of forestskirted Down,

Nor kept by Nature for herself, nor made by man his own,

From home and company remote and every playful joy.

Served, tending a few sheep and goats, a ragged Norman Boy.

Him never saw I, nor the spot: but from an English Dame,

Stranger to me, and yet my friend, a simple notice came,

With suit that I would speak in verse of that sequestered child

Whom, one bleak winter's day, she met upon the dreary Wild.

His flock, among the woodland's edge with relics sprinkled o'er

Of last night's snow, beneath a sky threatening the fall of more,

Where tufts of herbage tempted each, were busy at their feed,

And the poor Boy was busier still, with work of anxious heed.

There was he, where of branches rent and withered and decayed,

For covert from the keen north wind, his hands a hut had made

A tiny tenement, forsooth and frail, as needs

must be

A thing of such materials framed, by a builder such as he.

The hut stood finished by his pains, nor seemingly lacked aught

That skill or means of his could add, but the architect had wrought

Some limber twigs into a Cross, well-shaped with fingers nice,

To be engrafted on the top of his small edifice.

That Cross he now was fastening there, as the surest power and best

For supplying all deficiencies, all wants of the rude nest

The innocent Boy, else shelterless, his lonely head must hide.

cherub, not transformed,

But the poor ragged Thing whose ways my human heart had warmed.

ard for the true

And faithful service of his heart in the worst that might ensue

Of hardship and distressful fear, amid the

houseless waste

Where he, in his poor self so weak, by Providence was placed.

-Here, Lady! might I cease; but nay,

let us before we part With this dear holy shepherd-boy breathe a prayer of earnest heart,

That unto him, where'er shall lie his life's appointed way,

The Cross, fixed in his soul, may prove an all-sufficing stay.

heaviness be cleared,

For bodied forth before my eyes the crosscrowned hut appeared;

And, while around it storm as fierce seemed troubling earth and air,

I saw, within, the Norman Boy kneeling alone in prayer.

The Child, as if the thunder's voice spake with articulate call,

Bowed meekly in submissive fear, before the Lord of All;

His lips were moving; and his eyes, up

raised to sue for grace, With soft illumination cheered the dimness of that place.

How beautiful is holiness !-what wonder if the sight,

Almost as vivid as a dream, produced a dream at night?

I took him in my arms,

And lifted from the grassy floor, stilling his faint alarms,

And bore him high through yielding air my debt of love to pay,

By

I

giving him, for both our sakes, an hour of holiday.

whispered, "Yet a little while, dear Child!

thou art my own,

To show thee some delightful thing, in country or in town.

What shall it be? a mirthful throng? or that holy place and calm

St. Denis, filled with royal tombs, or the Church of Notre Dame?

"St. Ouen's golden Shrine? Or choose what else would please thee most Of any wonder, Normandy, or all proud France, can boast!"

"My Mother," said the Boy, "was born near to a blessèd Tree,

The Chapel Oak of Allonville; good Angel, show it me!"

On

wings, from broad and steadfast poise let loose by this reply,

For Allonville, o'er down and dale, away then did we fly;

O'er town and tower we flew, and fields in May's fresh verdure drest;

The wings they did not flag: the Child, though grave, was not deprest.

But who shall show, to waking sense, the gleam of light that broke

Forth from his eyes, when first the Boy looked down on that huge oak, For length of days so much revered, so

famous where it stands

For twofold hallowing-Nature's care, and work of human hands?

Strong as an eagle with my charge I glided

round and round

The wide-spread boughs, for view of door, window, and stair that wound Gracefully up the gnarled trunk; nor left we unsurveyed

The pointed steeple peering forth from the centre of the shade.

sanctuary showed,

By light of lamp and precious stones, that glimmered here, there glowed, Shrine, Altar, Image, Offerings hung in sign of gratitude;

Light that inspired accordant thoughts; and speech I thus renewed :

"Hither the Afflicted come, as thou hast heard thy Mother say,

And, kneeling, supplication make to our
Lady de la Paix ;
What mournful sighs have here been heard,
and, when the voice was stopt

By sudden pangs, what bitter tears have on this pavement dropt!

"Poor Shepherd of the naked Down, a favored lot is thine,

Far happier lot, dear Boy, than brings full many to this shrine;

From body pains and pains of soul tho needest no release,

Thy hours as they flow on are spent, if no in joy, in peace.

As

silence from my mind,

visions still more bright have done, and

left no trace behind.

But oh! that Country-man of thine, whose eye, loved Child, can see

A pledge of endless bliss in acts of early piety,

In verse, which to thy ear might come, would treat this simpl theme, Nor leave untold our happy flight in that adventurous dream.

Alas the dream, to thee, poor Boy! to thee from whom it flowed,

Was nothing, scarcely can be aught, yet 'twas bounteously bestowed, If I may dare to cherish hope that gentle eyes will read

Not loth, and listening Little-ones, hearttouched, their fancies feed.

THE WESTMORELAND GIRL.

TO MY GRANDCHILDREN.
PART I.

SEEK who will delight in fable,
I shall tell you truth. A Lamb
Leapt from this steep bank to follow
'Cross the brook its thoughtless dam.

Far and wide on hill and valley
Rain had fallen, unceasing rain,
And the bleating mother's Young-one
Struggled with the flood in vain :
But, as chanced, a Cottage-maiden
(Ten years scarcely had she told)
Seeing, plunged into the torrent,
Clasped the Lamb and kept her hold.
Whirled adown the rocky channel,
Sinking, rising, on they go,

Peace and rest, as seems, before them
Only in the lake below.