There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain ;

Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain

Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease, Would be rational peace-a philosopher's ease.

There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,
And attention full ten times as much as there needs; 10
Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy;
And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.

There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare
Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there,
There's virtue, the title it surely may claim,

Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name.

This picture from nature may seem to depart,
Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart;
And I for five centuries right gladly would be
Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he.

V

TO MY SISTER

T is the first mild day of March:

IT

Each minute sweeter than before,

The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you;-and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate

Our living calendar:

We from to-day, my Friend, will date

The opening of the

year.

1800

20

ΤΟ

20

Love, now a universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth:
-It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than years of toiling reason:

Our minds shall drink at every pore

The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey:

We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls:

They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my

Sister! come, I pray,

With speed put on your woodland dress;

And bring no book: for this one day

We'll give to idleness.

30

40

1798

VI

SIMON LEE

THE OLD HUNTSMAN

With an incident in which he was concerned

N the sweet shire of Cardigan,

IN

Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old Man dwells, a little man,—
'Tis said he once was tall.

Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When Echo bandied, round and round,
The halloo of Simon Lee.

In those proud days, he little cared

For husbandry or tillage;

To blither tasks did Simon rouse

The sleepers of the village.

IO

He all the country could outrun,
Could leave both man and horse behind;
And often, ere the chase was done,
He reeled, and was stone-blind.

And still there's something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;

For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices!

But, oh the heavy change!-bereft

Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see!
Old Simon to the world is left

In liveried poverty.

His Master's dead, and no one now

Dwells in the Hall of Ivor;

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;

He is the sole survivor.

And he is lean and he is sick;

His body, dwindled and awry,

Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
His legs are thin and dry.

One prop he has, and only one,
His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village Common.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.

This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer?

Oft, working by her Husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do ;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,

'Tis little, very little-all

That they can do between them.

40

50

60

Few months of life has he in store

As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.

My gentle Reader, I perceive

How patiently you've waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in every thing.

What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This old Man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour,
That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

'You're overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool,' to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor old Man so long
And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run

90

So fast out of his heart, I thought

They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men

Hath oftener left me mourning.

VII

WRITTEN IN GERMANY

ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY

THE Reader must be apprised that the Stoves in North Germany generally have the impression of a galloping horse upon them, this being part of the Brunswick Arms.

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 this 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.

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, then in search of 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.

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.

ΤΟ

20

30