STRAY PLEASURES.

"Pleasure is spread through the earth In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find."

1806.-1807.

By their floating mill,

That lies dead and still,

Behold yon Prisoners three,

The Miller with two Dames, on the breast of the Thames ! The platform is small, but gives room for them all;

And they're dancing merrily.

From the shore come the notes

To their mill where it floats,

To their house and their mill tethered fast:

To the small wooden isle where, their work to beguile, 10
They from morning to even take whatever is given ; ·
And many a blithe day they have past.

In sight of the spires,

All alive with the fires

Of the sun going down to his rest,

In the broad open eye of the solitary sky,

They dance, there are three, as jocund as free,

While they dance on the calm river's breast.

Man and Maidens wheel,

They themselves make the reel,

And their music's a prey which they seize ;

It plays not for them, what matter? 't is theirs;

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And if they had care, it has scattered their cares;
While they dance, crying, "Long as ye please!"

They dance not for me,

Yet mine is their glee !

Thus pleasure is spread through the earth

In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find;
Thus a rich loving-kindness, redundantly kind,
Moves all Nature to gladness and mirth.

The showers of the spring

Rouse the birds, and they sing ;

If the wind do but stir for his proper delight,

Each leaf, that and this, his neighbor will kiss;

Each wave, one and t'other, speeds after his brother;
They are happy, for that is their right!

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"YES, IT WAS THE MOUNTAIN ECHO.” 1806. — 1807.

YES, it was the mountain Echo,

Solitary, clear, profound,

Answering to the shouting Cuckoo,

Giving to her sound for sound!

Composed at Grasmere, during a walk one Evening, after a stormy day, the Author having just read in a Newspaper that the dissolution of Mr. Fox was hourly expected.

LOUD is the Vale! the Voice is up

With which she speaks when storms are gone,

A mighty unison of streams!

Of all her Voices, One!

Loud is the Vale; - this inland Depth

In peace is roaring like the Sea;

A Power is passing from the earth
To breathless Nature's dark abyss ;
But when the great and good depart
What is it more than this-

That Man, who is from God sent forth,
Doth yet again to God return?
Such ebb and flow must ever be,

Then wherefore should we mourn?

AN Orpheus! an Orpheus! yes, Faith may grow bold,
And take to herself all the wonders of old,

Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name.

His station is there; and he works on the crowd,
He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim,
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?

What an eager assembly! what an empire is this!
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss ;
The mourner is cheered, and the anxious have rest;
And the guilt-burdened soul is no longer opprest.

As the Moon brightens round her the clouds of the night,
So He, where he stands, is a centre of light;

It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-browed Jack,
And the pale-visaged Baker's, with basket on back.

ΙΟ

That errand-bound 'Prentice was passing in haste -
What matter! he's caught, and his time runs to waste;
The Newsman is stopped, though he stops on the fret;
And the half-breathless Lamplighter- he 's in the net! 20