Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played ;

And thine, too, is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

THREE years she grew in sun and shower,

Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown;

15

1799.

Both law and impulse: and with me

The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

"She shall be sportive as the fawn

That wild with glee across the lawn,

Or up the mountain springs;

And her's shall be the breathing balm,

And her's the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

ΙΟ

15

ee

The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend;

20

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the Storm

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.

ee

The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;

40

A POET'S EPITAPH.

ART thou a Statist in the van

Of public conflicts trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man ;

Then may'st thou think upon the dead.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,

A Soldier, and no man of chaff?
Welcome! but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.

Physician art thou? one, all eyes,
Philosopher! a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,

O turn aside, and take, I pray, That he below may rest in peace,

5

ΙΟ

15

20

Thy ever-dwindling soul, away!

A Moralist perchance appears;

25

Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:

And he has neither eyes nor ears;

Himself his world, and his own God!

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling

Nor form, nor feeling, great or small; A reasoning, self-sufficing 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

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.

LUCY GRAY;

OR, SOLITUDE.

OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

60

1799.