Who, with a natural instinct to discern

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature's highest dower;
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives:
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate; 4
Is placable because occasions rise

So often that demand such sacrifice;

More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,

As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thenee, also, more alive to tenderness.

レー

--Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows:
-Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terins, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait

er honours, or for worldly state;

Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,

A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face

Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need:

'Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity.—
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:

that and ojan

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or He must go to dust without his fame,

And leave a dead unprofitable name,

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great nor small;
A reasoning, self-sufficient thing,
An intellectual All in All!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;
Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He, with modest looks, And clad in homely russet brown? He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,
-The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak, both Man and Boy, Hath been an idler in the land; Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.

- Come hither in thy hour of strength; Come, weak as is a breaking wave! Here stretch thy body at full length; Or build thy house upon this grave.

TO THE SPADE OF A FRIEND,
(AN AGRICULTURIST,)

COMPOSED WHILE WE WERE LABOURING TOGETHER IN HIS

PLEASURE-GROUND.

SPADE! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his Lands, And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont's side, Thou art a tool of honour in my hands;

I press thee, through the yielding soil, with pride.

Rare Master has it been thy lot to know; Long hast Thou served a Man to reason true; Whose life combines the best of high and low, The toiling many and the resting few;

Health, meekness, ardour, quietness secure,
And industry of body and of mind;
And elegant enjoyments, that are pure
As Nature is; too pure to be refined,

Here often hast Thou heard the Poet sing
In concord with his River murmuring by ;
Or in some silent field, while timid Spring
Is yet uncbeered by other minstrelsy.

Who shall inherit Thee when death has laid
Low in the darksome Cell thine own dear Lord!
That Man will have a trophy, humble Spade!
A trophy nobler than a Conqueror's sword.

If he be One that feels, with skill to part
False praise from true, or greater from the less,
Thee will he welcome to his hand and heart,
Thou monument of peaceful happiness!

With Thee he will not dread a toilsome day,
His powerful Servant, his inspiring Mate!
And, when thou art past service, worn away,
Thee a surviving soul shall consecrate.

His thrift thy usefulness will never scorn;
An Heir-loom in his cottage wilt thou be:
High will he hang thee up, and will adorn
His rustic chimney with the last of Thee!

TO MY SISTER.

WRITTEN AT A SMALL DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE, AND SENT BY MY LITTLE BOY.

Ir is the first mild day of March:

Each minute sweeter than before,

The Redbreast sings from the tall Larch That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield To the bare trees, and mountains bare, And grass in the green field.

My Sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign,
Come forth and feel the sun.

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
Our living Calendar:

We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year

And he is lean and he is sick;
His body, dwindled and awry,

Rests upon ancles swoln and thick;

His legs are thin and dry.

One prop he has, and only one,
His Wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village Common.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.

This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what avails it now, the land
Which he can till no longer?

Oft, working by her Husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
Alas! 't is very little-all
Which 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 ancles swell.

My gentle Reader, I perceive
How patiently you've waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in every thing.*
What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:

It is no tale; but should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see This Old Man doing all he could To unearth the root of an old tree, A stump of rotten wood.

* See Note.