She has a world of ready wealth, Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, One impulse from a vernal wood Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things: Enough of science and of art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING I heard a thousand blended notes, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; Through primrose tufts, in that green bower. The birds around me hopped and played The budding twigs spread out their fan, And I must think, do all I can, If this belief from heaven be sent, TO MY SISTER It is the first mild day of March: There is a blessing in the air, To the bare trees, and mountains bare My sister! ('tis a wish of mine) 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 We from to-day, my friend, will date The opening of the year. 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 fifty years of reason: Our minds shall drink at every pore The spirit of the season. Some silent laws our heart will make, We for the year to come may take And from the blessed power that rolls We'll frame the measure of our souls: Then come, my sister! come, I pray, SIMON LEE THE OLD HUNTSMAN With an incident in which he was concerned. IN the sweet shire of Cardigan, Full five-and-thirty years he lived No man like him the horn could sound, When Echo bandied, round and round, In those proud days, he little cared To blither tasks did Simon rouse He all the country could outrun, Could leave both man and horse behind; And still there's something in the world For when the chiming hounds are out, 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 wife, an aged woman, Lives with him, near the waterfall, Upon the village Common. Beside their moss-grown hut of clay, This scrap of land he from the heath Oft, working by her husband's side, And, though you with your utmost skill "Tis little, very little, all That they can do between them. 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'll expect O reader! had you in your mind What more I have to say is short, It is no tale; but, should you think, One summer-day I chanced to see |