The old man still stood talking by my side;
But now his voice to me was like a stream
Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;
And the whole body of the man did seem
Like one whom I had met with in a dream;
Or like a man from some far region sent,

To give me human strength, by apt admonishment.

My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills,
And hope that is unwilling to be fed ;
Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills;
And mighty Poets in their misery dead.
-Perplexed, and longing to be comforted,
My question eagerly did I renew,

"How is it that you live, and what is it you do?"

He with a smile did then his words repeat;
And said, that, gathering leeches, far and wide
He travelled; stirring thus about his feet

The waters of the pools where they abide.
"Once I could meet with them on every side;
But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."

While he was talking thus, the lonely place,

The old man's shape and speech-all troubled me;
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace
About the weary moors continually,
Wandering about alone and silently.
While I these thoughts within myself pursued,
He having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.

And soon with this he other matter blended,
Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,
But stately in the main; and when he ended,
I could have laughed myself to scorn, to find
In that decrepit man so firm a mind.
"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure :
I'll think of the leech gatherer on the lonely moor!”

V.

THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.

1802.

AT the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years; Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard

In the silence of morning the song of the Bird.

'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;

Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripped with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade:
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.

VI.

WE ARE SEVEN.

A SIMPLE child

That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl:

She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic woodland air,
And she was wildly clad;
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
-Her beauty made me glad.

"Sisters and brothers, little maid,
How many may you be?”

“How many? Seven in all,” she said,
And wondering looked at me.

"And where are they? I pray you tell."
She answered, "Seven are we :
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

"Two of us in the church-yard lie,

My sister and my brother;

And in the church-yard cottage, I

Dwell near them with my mother."

1797.

-Page 282.

OF

“ Their graves are green, they may be seen,” The little maid replied;

"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side.

"So in the church-yard she was laid; And when the grass was dry, Together round her grave we played

My brother John and I.

"And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side."