"Repent! repent!" he cries aloud, "While yet ye may find mercy; - strive To love the Lord with all your might; Turn to him, seek him day and night, And save your souls alive!

"Repent! repent! though ye have gone, Through paths of wickedness and woe, After the Babylonian harlot;

And, though your sins be red as scarlet,
They shall be white as snow!"

Even as he passed the door, these words
Did plainly come to Peter's ears;
And they such joyful tidings were,
The joy was more than he could bear! -
He melted into tears.

Sweet tears of hope and tenderness !
And fast they fell, a plenteous shower!
His nerves, his sinews seemed to melt;
Through all his iron frame was felt
A gentle, a relaxing, power!

Each fibre of his frame was weak; Weak all the animal within;

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Thought Peter, 't is the poor man's home!
He listens not a sound is heard
Save from the trickling household rill;
But, stepping o'er the cottage-sill,
Forthwith a little Girl appeared.

She to the Meeting-house was bound
In hopes some tidings there to gather:
No glimpse it is, no doubtful gleam;
She saw - and uttered with a scream,
"My father! here's my father!"

The very word was plainly heard,
Heard plainly by the wretched Mother -
Her joy was like a deep affright:
And forth she rushed into the light,
And saw it was another!

And, instantly, upon the earth, Beneath the full moon shining bright,

270

Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine:
Mine was it in the fields both day and
night,

And by the waters, all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
The cottage-windows through the twilight
blazed,

I heeded not the summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village-clock tolled six - I wheeled
about,

31

The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous
throng,

To cut across the reflex of a star;
Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spin-
ning still

The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Whecled by me - even as if the earth had
rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train Febier and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

Written in Germany; intended as part of a poem on my own life, but struck out as not being wanted there. Like most of my schoolfellows I was an impassioned nutter. For this pleasure, the vale of Esthwaite, abounding in coppice-wood, furnished a very wide range. These verses arose out of the remembrance of particularly in the extensive woods that still feelings I had often had when a boy, and

stretch from the side of Esthwaite Lake towards Graythwaite, the seat of the ancient family of Sandys.