But who is he, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter then their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.
The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,
-The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
But he is weak, both man and boy,
Hath been an idler in the land:
Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.
-Come hither in thy hour of strength;
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length;
Or build thy house upon this grave.

TO MY SISTER.

WRITTEN AT A SMALL DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE, AND SENT BY MY LITTLE BOY.

IT is the first mild day of March:

Each minute sweeter than before,

The red-breast sings from the tall larch

That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,

And grass in the green field.

My Sister! ('tis a wish of mine)

Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;

Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you; and pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:

We from to-day, my friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now an universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth:

-It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than fifty years of reason:

Our minds shall drink at every pore

The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts may make,
Which they shall long obey:

We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress;
-And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

TO A YOUNG LADY,

WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY.

DEAR child of Nature, let them rail!
-There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold,

Where thou, a wife and friend, shalt see

Thy own delightful days, and be

A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd-boy,

As if thy heritage were joy,

And pleasure were thy trade,

Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,

Shalt show us how divine a thing

A woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,

Nor leave thee when gray hairs are nigh

A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,

And lovely as a Lapland night,

Shall lead thee to thy grave.

LINES,

WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played
Their thoughts I cannot measure:-
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If I these thoughts may not prevent,
If such be of my creed the plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN.

WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED

IN the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall,
An old man dwells, a little man,
I've heard he once was tall.

Full five-and-twenty years he lived

A running huntsman merry;

And though he has but one eye left,
His cheek is like a cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,

And no man was so full of glee;

To say the least, four counties round

Had heard of Simon Lee;

His master's dead, and no one now

Dwells in the Hall of Ivor:

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;

He is the sole survivor.

His hunting feats have him bereft,

Of his right eye, as you may see;

And then, what limbs those feats have left, Το poor old Simon Lee!

When he was young he little knew

Of husbandry or tillage;

And now is forced to work, though weak, -The weakest in the village.

He all the country could outrun,

Could leave both man and horse behind;

And often, ere the race was done,

He reeled and was stone-blind.

And still there's something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;

For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices!

But he is lean and he is sick,

His dwindled body half awry,

His ankles too are swoln and thick;

His legs are thin and dry.

He has no son, he has no child,

His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,

Upon the village common.

Old Ruth works out of doors with him,

And does what Simon cannot do;

For she, not over stout of limb,

Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill

From labour could not wean them,

Alas! 'tis very little, all

Which they can do between them.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.

This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what avails the land to them,
Which they can till no longer?

Few months of life has he in store,

As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more

Do his weak ankles swell.

My gentle reader, I perceive

How patiently you've waited,

And I'm afraid that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O reader had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle reader! you would find

A tale in every thing,

What more I have to say is short,
I hope you'll kindly take it:

It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This old man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour

That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool," to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor old man so long
And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,

And thanks and praises seemed to run

So fast out of his heart, I thought

They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning,

Alas! the gratitude of men

Has oftner left me mourning.

In the school of

is a tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the names of the several persons who have been schoolmasters there since the foundation of the school, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite one of those names the Author wrote the following lines.

IF Nature, for a favourite child

In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray.

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears

In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.