SONNET.

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven is on the sea:
Listen! the mighty being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder-everlastingly.

Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear'st untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest "in Abraham's bosom " all the year;
And worshipp'st at the temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

THE HAMLET.

WRITTEN IN WHICHWOOD FOREST.

THE hinds how blest, who ne'er beguiled
To quit their hamlet's hawthorn wild;
Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main,
For splendid care, and guilty gain!

When morning's twilight-tinctured beam Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam, They rove abroad in ether blue,

To dip the scythe in fragrant dew;
The sheaf to bind, the beech to fell,
That nodding shades a craggy dell.

'Midst gloomy glades, in warbles clear,
Wild nature's sweetest notes they hear;
On green untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue;

In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds,
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds :
And startle from her ashen spray,

Across the glen, the screaming jay:
Each native charm their steps explore
Of Solitude's sequester'd store.

Their weary spirits to relieve,

The meadows incense breathe at eve.
No riot mars the simple fare,

That o'er a glimmering hearth they share :
But when the curfew's measured roar

Duly, the darkening valleys o'er,
Has echoed from the distant town,
They wish no beds of cygnet-down,

No trophied canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.

Their little sons, who spread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,
Or through the primrosed coppice stray,
Or gambol in the new-mown hay ;
Or quaintly braid the cowslip-twine,

Or drive afield the tardy kine;

Or hasten from the sultry hill,

To loiter at the shady rill;

Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest,
To rob the raven's ancient nest.

Their humble porch with honied flow'rs The curling woodbine's shade embow'rs: From the small garden's thymy mound Their bees in busy swarms resound :

L

7

Nor fell Disease, before his time,
Hastes to consume life's golden prime:
But when their temples long have wore
The silver crown of tresses hoar;

As studious still calm peace to keep,

Beneath a flowery turf they sleep.-WARTON.