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

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

And back to the forests again!

1799

VIII

A POET'S EPITAPH

RT thou a Statist in the van

AR

Of public conflicts trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man ;
Then may'st thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou? draw not nigh!
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?
A rosy Man, right plump to see ?
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near,
This grave no cushion is for thee.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,
A Soldier and no man of chaff?
Welcome !-but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.

Physician art thou?-one, all eyes,
Philosopher!—a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside, and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
Thy ever-dwindling soul, away!

A Moralist perchance appears;
Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor
And he has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God;

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;

Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,—
The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak; both Man and Boy,
Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.

-Come hither in thy hour of strength; Come, weak as is a breaking wave! Here stretch thy body at full length; Or build thy house upon this grave.

1799

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8

B

IX

TO THE DAISY

RIGHT Flower! whose home is everywhere,
Bold in maternal Nature's care,

And all the long year through the heir

Of joy and sorrow ;

Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest thorough!

Is it that Man is soon deprest?

A thoughtless Thing! who, once unblest,
Does little on his memory rest,

Or on his reason,

And Thou wouldst teach him how to find
A shelter under every wind,

A hope for times that are unkind
And every season?

Thou wander'st the wide world about,
Uncheck'd by pride or scrupulous doubt,
With friends to greet thee, or without,
Yet pleased and willing;

Meek, yielding to the occasion's call,
And all things suffering from all,
Thy function apostolical

In peace fulfilling.

1802

In the School of

X

MATTHEW

is a tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the Names of the several persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the foundation of the School, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite to one of those Names the Author wrote the following lines.

F Nature, for a favourite child,

IF

In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears

In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.

-When through this little wreck of fame,
Cipher and syllable! thine eye

Has travelled down to Matthew's name,
Pause with no common sympathy.

And if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed:
For Matthew a request I make
Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,

Is silent as a standing pool;

Far from the chimney's merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.

The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
Were tears of light, the dew of gladness.

Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up—
He felt with spirit so profound.

-Thou soul of God's best earthly mould!
Thou happy Soul! and can it be
That these two words of glittering gold
Are all that must remain of thee?

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XI

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS

WE

E walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;

And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said,
'The will of God be done!'

A village schoolmaster was he,

With hair of glittering grey;

As blithe a man as you could see

On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,

And by the steaming rills,

We travelled merrily, to pass

A day among the hills.

'Our work,' said I, 'was well begun,

Then from thy breast what thought,

Beneath so beautiful a sun,

So sad a sigh has brought?'

ΤΟ

A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:

'Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this which I have left
Full thirty years behind.

'And just above yon slope of corn
Such colours, and no other,
Were in the sky, that April morn,
Of this the very brother.

‹ With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

And, to the church-yard come, stopped short
Beside my daughter's grave.

'Nine summers had she scarcely seen,

The pride of all the vale;

And then she sang ;-she would have been

A very nightingale.

'Six feet in earth my Emma lay;

And yet I loved her more,

For so it seemed, than till that day
I e'er had loved before.

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