VII. Young as I am, my course is run, I shall not see another sun; I cannot lift my limbs to know If they have any life or no. For once could have thee close to me, Nor shall I see another day MATERNAL GRIEF. DEPARTED child! I could forget thee once A shadow, never, never to be displaced The child she mourned had overstepped the pale Have you espied upon a dewy lawn A pair of Leverets each provoking each That nature prompts them to display, their looks, Lodged in their innocent bosoms, and the spirit Such union, in the lovely girl maintained And her twin brother, had the parent seen, Ere, pouncing like a ravenous bird of prey, Death in a moment parted them, and left The mother, in her turns of anguish, worse So clear, so bright, our fathers said A frog leaps out from bordering grass, Shrunk from his mother's presence, shunned with fear For a light heart in a dull season. In his known haunts of joy where'er he might, In walks whose boundary is the lost one's grave, And you may love him in the pool, Nor blush if o'er your heart be stealing Long may you love your pensioner mouse, Which, soothed and sweetened by the grace of Heaven Soft as the dying throb of the lyre. THE REDBREAST. SUGGESTED IN A WESTMORELAND COTTAGE. DRIVEN in by Autumn's sharpening air Not like a beggar is he come, As if it were a natural shield Charged with a blazon on the field, Due to that good and pious deed He plays the expert ventriloquist; And, caught by glimpses now—now missed, Puzzles the listener with a doubt If the soft voice he throws about Comes from within doors or without! Was ever such a sweet confusion, Heart-pleased we smile upon the bird Of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, A dream of that low-warbled hymn The words 'Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, are part of a child's prayer, still in general use through the northern counties. Which old folk, fondly pleased to trim Above and round the sacred places Thrice happy creature! in all lands . Nurtured by hospitable hands: And he belike will flinch or start, Good friends he has to take his part; HER EYES ARE WILD. I. HER eyes are wild, her head is bare, And underneath the hay-stack warm, II. "Sweet babe! they say that I am mad, I cannot work thee any woe. NOTES ΤΟ POEMS FOUNDED ON THE AFFECTIONS. Note, p. 87. "The Brothers." [Extract from a letter addressed by Wordsworth to Charles James Fox in 1802, and accompanying a copy of the Poems: "In the two poems, 'The Brothers' and 'Michael,' I have attempted to draw a picture of the domestic affections, as I know they exist amongst a class of men who are now almost confined to the north of England. They are small independent proprietors of land, here called statesmen,' men of respectable education, who daily labour on their own little properties. The domestic affections will always be strong amongst men who live in a country not crowded with population; if these men are placed above poverty. But, if they are proprietors of small estates which have descended to them from The letter from which this extract is made, was published in 1838, by Sir Henry Bunbury, among some miscellaneous letters in his "Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, etc.," p. 436. It is this poem of which Coleridge said "THE BROTHERS, that model of English pastoral, which I never yet read with unclouded eye." Biographia Literaria, Vol. II., chap. v., p. 85, Note, Edit. of 1847. And Southey, writing to Coleridge, July 11, 1801, says :"God bless Wordsworth for that poem! (THE BROTHERS.")" Life and Correspondence of Southey, Vol. II., p. 150, chap. viii. — H. R.] Page 96. 'I travelled among unknown men.' Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed That Lucy's eyes surveyed. their ancestors, the power which these affections will acquire amongst such men, is inconceivable by those who have only had an opportunity of observing hired labourers, farmers, and the manufacturing poor. Their little tract of land serves as a kind of permanent rallying point for their domestic feelings, as a tablet upon which they are written, which makes them objects of memory in a thousand instances when they would A friend, a true poet himself, to whom I owe some new otherwise be forgotten. It is a fountain fitted to the insight into the merits of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, nature of social man, from which supplies of affection and who showed me to my surprise, that there were as pure as his heart was intended for, are daily drawn. nooks in that rich and varied region, some of the shy This class of men is rapidly disappearing. You, Sir, treasures of which I was not perfectly acquainted with, have a consciousness, upon which every good man will first made me feel the great beauty of this stanza; in congratulate you, that the whole of your public conduct which the poet, as it were, spreads day and night over has in one way or other been directed to the preservation the object of his affections, and seems, under the influof this class of men, and those who hold similar situa-ence of passionate feeling, to think of England, whether tions. You have felt that the most sacred of all pro- in light or darkness, only as her play-place and verdant perty is the property of the poor. The two poems home.-S. C." (Sara Coleridge.) Biographia Litethat I have mentioned were written with a view to raria of S. T. Coleridge, Vol. II., chap. ix., p. 173, Note, show that men who do not wear fine cloaths can feel Edit. of 1847.-H. R.] deeply. Pectus enim est quod disertos facit, et vis mentis. Ideoque imperitis quoque, si modo sint aliquo affectu concitati, verba non desunt.' The poems are faithful copies from nature; and I hope whatever effect [In his editions of 1845 and 1850, the author has exthey may have upon you, you will at least be able to perceive that they may excite profitable sympathies included the following stanza, which was the second in many kind and good hearts; and may in some small this piece in the earlier editions, to the readers of which degree enlarge our feelings of reverence for our species, it had become familiar, and is therefore preserved in and our knowledge of human nature, by showing that our best qualities are possessed by men whom we are too apt to consider, not with reference to the points in which they resemble us, but to those in which they manifestly differ from us." R this note: Page 98. 'Let other bards of angels sing. Such if thou wert in all men's view, A universal show, What would my fancy have to do? My feelings to bestow? - H. 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