Fair are the woods, and beauteous is the spot,
The vale where he was born: the churchyard hangs
Upon a slope above the village school;

And there, along that bank, when I have pass'd
At evening, I believe that oftentimes

A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute-looking at the grave in which he lies!

TO THE CUCKOO.

O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice :

O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?

While I am lying on the grass,
Thy twofold shout I hear !

From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near !

Though babbling only to the vale

Of sunshine and of flowers,

Thou bringest unto me a tale

Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!

Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invisible thing,

A voice, a mystery.

The same whom in my school-boy days

I listened to; that cry

Which made me look a thousand ways

In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove

Through woods and on the green;

And thou wert still a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet!
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, fairy place;
That is fit home for thee !

A NIGHT-PIECE.

THE sky is overcast

With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the moon,
Which through that vale is indistinctly seen,
A dull contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground, from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller as he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up-the clouds are split
Asunder,-and above his head he sees

The clear moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small,
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives. How fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not !-the wind is in the tree,

But they are silent; still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,

Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.

At length the vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.

YEW-TREES.

THERE is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,
Not loath to furnish weapons for the bands
Of Umfraville or Percy, ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths: or those that crossed the sea,
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary tree !-a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove ;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres, serpentine

Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved,—
Nor uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof

Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries,-ghostly shapes

May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope,