Or hast been summoned to the deep, Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep An incommunicable sleep.

I look for ghosts, but none will force Their way to me; 'tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Betwixt the living and the dead; For, surely, then I should have sight Of him I wait for day and night, With love and longings infinite.

My apprehensions came in crowds;
I dread the rustling of the grass;
The very shadows of the clouds
Have power to shake me as they pass:
I question things, and do not find
One that will answer to my mind;
And all the world appears unkind.

Beyond participation lie

My troubles, and beyond relief:
If any chance to heave a sigh,
They pity me, and not my grief.
Then come to me, my Son, or send
Some tidings that my woes may end;
I have no other earthly friend.

High on the breast of yon dark mountain, dark

With stony barrenness, a shining speck
Bright as a sunbeam sleeping till a shower
Brush it away, or cloud pass over it;

And such it might be deemed-a sleeping sunbeam ;
But 'tis a plot of cultivated ground,

Cut off, an island in the dusky waste;
And that attractive brightness is its own.
The lofty site, by nature framed, to tempt,
Amid a wilderness of rocks and stones,
The tiller's hand, a hermit might have chosen,
For opportunity presented thence

Far forth to send his wandering eye o'er land
And ocean, and look down upon the works,
The habitations, and the ways of men,
Himself unseen. But no tradition tells

That ever hermit dipped his maple dish

In the sweet spring that lurks 'mid yon green fields, And no such visionary views belong

To those who occupy and till the ground,

And on the bosom of the mountain dwell

A wedded pair in childless solitude.

A house of stones collected on the spot,

By rude hands built, with rocky knolls in front,
Backed also by a ledge of rock, whose crest
Of birch-trees waves above the chimney-top;
In shape, in size, and colour, an abode.
Such as in unsafe times of border war

Might have been wished for and contrived, to elude
The eye of roving plunderer-for their need

Suffices; and unshaken bears the assault

Of their most dreaded foe, the strong south-west,
In anger blowing from the distant sea.
Alone within her solitary hut;

There, or within the compass of her fields,
At any moment may the dame be found,
True as the stock-dove to her shallow nest

And to the grove that holds it. She beguiles

By intermingled work of house and field
The summer's day, and winter's; with success
Not equal, but sufficient to maintain,

Even at the worst, a smooth stream of content,
Until the expected hour at which her mate
From the far-distant quarry's vault returns,

And by his converse crowns a silent day
With evening cheerfulness. In powers of mind,
In scale of culture, few among my flock

Hold lower rank than this sequestered pair:
But humbleness of heart descends from Heaven:
And that best gift of Heaven hath fallen on them—
Abundant recompense for every want.

Stoop from your height, ye proud, and copy these!
Who, in their noiseless dwelling place, can hear
The voice of wisdom whispering Scripture texts
For the mind's government, or temper's peace;
And recommending for their mutual need,
Forgiveness, patience, hope, and charity!

A PORTRAIT.

He was a peasant of the lowest class:
Grey locks profusely round his temples hung
In clust'ring curls, like ivy, which the bite
Of Winter cannot thin; the fresh air lodged
Within his cheek, as light within a cloud:
And he returned our greeting with a smile:
A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays

And confident to-morrows.

THAT way look, my Infant, lo!

What a pretty baby-show!

See the Kitten on the wall,

Sporting with the leaves that fall,

Withered leaves-one-two-and three

From the lofty elder tree!

Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair,

Eddying round and round they sink,

Softly, slowly one might think,

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