And now, all eyes and feet, hath gained The middle of the arch. When list! he hears a piteous moan- VII. The lamb had slipped into the stream, His dam had seen him when he fell, She saw him down the torrent borne; And, while with all a mother's love Sent forth a cry forlorn, The lamb, still swimming round and round, Made answer to that plaintive sound. VIII. When he had learnt what thing it was, That sent this rueful cry; I ween, Both gladly now deferred their task; IX. He drew it gently from the pool, And brought it forth into the light: The shepherds met him with his charge, An unexpected sight! Into their arms the lamb they took, Said they, "He's neither maimed nor scarred.” Then up the steep ascent they hied, And placed him at his mother's side; And gently did the Bard Those idle shepherd-boys upbraid, And bade them better mind their trade. T INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH: FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. (This Extract is reprinted from "THE FRIEND.") WISDOM and spirit of the universe! Thou soul, that art the eternity of thought! By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn And in the frosty season, when the sun It was indeed for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture!-Clear and loud And woodland pleasures,-the resounding horn, Oh! too industrious folly! Oh! vain and causeless melancholy! Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth. Not framed to undergo unkindly shocks; Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, And no forewarning gives; But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife |