No strife disturbs his sister's breast;
She wars not with the mystery
Of time and distance, night and day,
The bonds of our humanity.

Her joy is like an instinct, joy
Of kitten, bird, or summer fly;
She dances, runs without an aim,
She chatters in her ecstacy.

Her brother now takes up the note,
And echoes back his sister's glee;
They hug the infant in my arms,
As if to force his sympathy.

Then, settling into fond discourse,
We rested in the garden bower!
While sweetly shone the evening sun
In his departing hour.

We told o'er all that we had done,--
Our rambles by the swift brook's side
Far as the willow-skirted pool
Where two fair swans together glide.
We talked of change, of winter gone,
Of green leaves on the hawthorn spray
Of birds that build their nests and sing
And "all since Mother went away!"

To her these tales they will repeat,
To her our new-born tribes will show,
The goslings green, the ass's colt,
The lambs that in the meadow go.

But, see, the evening star comes forth!
To bed the children must depart;

A moment's heaviness they feel,
A sadness at the heart:

"Tis gone-and in a merry fit

They run up stairs in gamesome race;
I too, infected by their mood,

I could have joined the wanton chase.

Five minutes past-and Oh the change!
Asleep upon their beds they lie;
Their busy limbs in perfect rest,
And closed the sparkling eye.

ALICE FELL.

THE post-boy drove with fierce career,
For threat'ning clouds the moon had drown'd

When suddenly I seem'd to hear

A moan, a lamentable sound.

As if the wind blew many ways

I heard the sound, and more and more:
It seem'd to follow with the chaise,
And still I heard it as before.

At length I to the boy call'd out,
He stopp'd his horses at the word;
But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout.
Nor aught else like it could be heard.

The boy then smack'd his whip, and fast
The horses scamper'd through the rain;
And soon I heard upon the blast
The voice, and bade him halt again.

Said I, alighting on the ground,

"What can it be, this piteous moan?"
And there a little girl I found,
Sitting behind the chaise, alone.

"My cloak!" the word was last and first,
And loud and bitterly she wept,

As if her very heart would burst;

And down from off the chaise she leapt.

"What ails you, child?" she sobb'd, "Look here!"

I saw it in the wheel entangled,

A weather-beaten rag as e'er

From any garden scare-crow dangled.

'Twas twisted betwixt nave and spoke;
Her help she lent, and with good heed
Together we released the cloak;
A wretched, wretched rag indeed!
"And whither are you going, child,
To night along these lonesome ways?"
"To Durham," answer'd she half wild-
"Then come with me into the chaise."

She sate like one past all relief;
Sob after sob she forth did send
In wretchedness, as if her grief
Could never, never, have an end.

"My child, in Durham do you dwell?"
She check'd herself in her distress,
And said, "My name is Alice Fell;
I'm fatherless and motherless.

And I to Durham, Sir, belong."

And then, as if the thought would choke
Her very heart, her grief grew strong;
And all was for her tatter'd cloak.

The chaise drove on; our journey's end
Was nigh; and, sitting by my side,
As if she'd lost her only friend
She wept, nor would be pacified.

Up to the tavern door we post;
Of Alice and her grief I told;
And I gave money to the host,
To buy a new cloak for the old.

"And let it be of duffil grey,

As warm a cloak as man can sell!" Proud creature was she the next day, The little orphan, Alice Fell!

LUCY GRAY;

OR SOLITUDE.

OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day,
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew ;
She dwelt on a wide moor,

-The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,

The hare upon the green;

But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

To-night will be a stormy night-
You to the town must go;

And take a lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow.'

"That, father! will I gladly do;

"Tis scarcely afternoon

The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon.'

At this the father raised his hook
And snapped a faggot band;

He plied his work-and Lucy took

The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:

With many a wanton stroke

Her feet disperse the powdery snow,

That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:

She wandered up and down:

And many a hill did Lucy climb;

But never reached the town.

The wretched parents, all that night,
Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.

And, turning homeward, now they cried. In heaven we all shall meet!"

-When in the snow the mother spied The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downward from the steep hill's edge They tracked the footmarks small:

And through the broken hawthorn hedge, And by the long stone wall:

And then an open field they crossed:

The marks were still the same;

They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
The footmarks, one by one,

Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none !

-Yet some maintain that to this day

She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray

Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

WE ARE SEVEN.

A SIMPLE child

That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl:

She was eight years old, she said;

Her hair was thick with many a ourl

That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad;

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
--Her beauty made me glad.

"Sisters and brothers, little maid,

How many may you be?"

"How many? Seven in all," she said,
And wondering looked at me.

"And where are they? I pray you tell."
She answered, "Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

Two of us in the churchyard lie,
My sister and my brother;

And, in the churchyard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother."

"You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,

Yet ye are seven!-I pray you tell,
Sweet maid, how this may be ?"

Then did the little maid reply,
"Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the churchyard lie,
Beneath the churchyard tree."
"You run about, my little maid,
Your limbs they are alive;

If two are in the churchyard laid,
Then ye are only five."

"Their graves are green, they may be seen,"

The little maid replied,

"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,

And they are side by side.

My stockings there I often knit,

My kerchief there I hem;

And there upon the ground I sit

I sit and sing to them.

And often after sunset, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

The first that died was little Jane;

In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;

And then she went away.

So in the churchyard she was laid;

And all the summer dry,

Together round her grave we played,

My brother John and I.

And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go.

And he lies by her side."