He at the building of this sheepfold wrought,
And left the work unfinished when he died.
Three years, or little more, did Isabel

Survive her husband: at her death the estate
Was sold, and went into a stranger's hand.

The cottage which was named THE EVENING STAR
Is gone the ploughshare has been through the ground
On which it stood; great changes have been wrought
In all the neighbourhood:-yet the oak is left
That grew beside their door; and the remains
Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen

Beside the boisterous brook of Greenhead Ghyll.

POEMS OF SENTIMENT AND

REFLECTION.

EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY.

"WHY, William, on that old gray stone,

Thus for the length of half a day,

Why, William, sit you thus alone,

And dream your time away?

"Where are your books? that light bequeathed

To beings else forlorn and blind!

Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.

"You look round on your mother earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you:
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply-

"The eye-it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against, or with our will.

"Nor less I deem that there are powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.

"Think you, mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,

That nothing of itself will come,

But we must still be seeking?

"Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,

Conversing as I may,

I sit upon this old gray stone,

And dream my time away."

THE TABLES TURNED.

AN EVENING SCENE, ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

UP! up! my friend, and quit your books: Or surely you '11 grow double:

Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks.
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless-
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man.

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:

We murder to dissect.

Enough of science and of art;

Close up these barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY.
A PLAGUE on your languages, German and Norse!
Let me have the song of the kettle:

And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse,
That gallops away with such fury and force,
On his dreary dull plate of black metal.*

See that fly, a disconsolate creature! perhaps
A child of the field or the grove;

And, sorrow for him! the dull treacherous heat
Has seduced the poor fool from his winter retreat,
And he creeps to the edge of my stove.

* An allusion to the galloping horse of the house of Brunswick, commonly seen on North German stoves.

Alas! how he fumbles about the domains

Which this comfortless oven environ!

He cannot find out in what track he must crawl,
Now back to the tiles, and now back to the wall,
And now on the brink of the iron.

Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemazed;
The best of his skill he has tried;

His feelers, methinks, I can see him put forth

To the east and the west, to the south and the north; But he finds neither guide-post nor guide.

How his spindles sink under him, foot, leg, and thigh;
His eyesight and hearing are lost;

Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws;
And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze
Are glued to his sides by the frost.

No brother, no mate has he near him-while I
Can draw warmth from the cheek of my love;
As blest and as glad in this desolate gloom,

As if green summer grass were the floor of my room,
And woodbines were hanging above.

Yet, God is my witness, thou small helpless thing!
Thy life I would gladly sustain

Till summer comes up from the south, and with crowds Of thy brethren a march thou shouldst sound through the clouds,

And back to the forests again!

CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR.

WHO is the happy warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
It is the generous spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought;