The boy recover'd heart, and told Both gladly now deferr'd their task; And there the helpless lamb he found, He drew it gently from the pool, And brought it forth into the light: The shepherds met him with his charge, An unexpected sight! Into their arms the lamb they took, Said they, "He's neither maimed nor scarred." Then up the steep ascent they hied, And placed him at his mother's side; Those idle shepherd-boys upbraid, And bade them better mind their trade. TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE, Six Years Old. O THOU ! whose fancies from afar are brought; Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, 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 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 imagery; O blessed vision! happy child! That 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. Oh! too industrious folly ! Oh! 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. Not framed to undergo 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 THE BROTHERS. "THESE tourists, Heaven preserve us ! needs must live A profitable life: some glance along Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air, Sit perch'd, with book and pencil on their knee, Tombstone nor name-only the turf we tread Upon the long stone seat beneath the eaves Who turn'd her large round wheel in the open air With back and forward steps. Towards the field In which the parish chapel stood alone, Girt round with a bare ring of mossy wall, While half an hour went by, the Priest had sent Risen from his seat, beside the snow-white ridge The stranger, whom he saw still lingering there. 'Twas one well known to him in former days, A fellow-mariner,—and so had fared Through twenty seasons; but he had been rear'd Of caves and trees :—and when the regular wind Between the tropics fill'd the steady sail, And blew with the same breath through days and weeks, Lengthening invisibly its weary line Along the cloudless main, he in those hours Of tiresome indolence, would often hang Over the vessel's side, and gaze and gaze; And, while the broad green wave and sparkling foam In union with the employment of his heart, He, thus by feverish passion overcome, |