TO MY SISTER. Ir is the first mild day of March: The redbreast sings from the tall larch There is a blessing in the air, My sister! ('tis a wish of mine,) Edward will come with you; - and, pray. No joyless forms shall regulate We from to-day, my Friend, will date Love, now a universal birth, One moment now may give us more Some silent laws our hearts will make, And from the blessed power that rolls We'll frame the measure of our souls: Then come, my Sister! come, I pray, [1798. 2 Composed in front of Alfoxden House. My little boy-mesanger on this occasion was the son of Lasil Montagu. The larch mentionca in the first stanza was standing when I revisited the place in May, 1841, more than forty years after. A few score yards from this tree, grew one SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN; WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE IN the sweet shire of Cardigan, No man like him the horn could sound, In those proud days, he little cared To blither tasks did Simon rouse He all the country could outrun, For when the chiming hounds are out, But, O the heavy change! - bereft His Master's dead,—and no one now Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead; And he is lean and he is sick; One prop he has, and only one; [see, of the most remarkable beech-trees ever seen. It was of immense size, and threw out arms that struck into the soil, like those of the banyan-tree, and rose again from it. Two of the branches thus inserted themselves twice; which gave to each the appearance of a serpent moving along by gathering itself up in folds. — Author" Notes. Beside their moss-grown hut of clay, This scrap of land he from the heath Oft, working by her Husband's side, And, though you with your utmost skill That they can do between them. Few months of life has he in store, For still, the more he works, the more O Reader! had you in your mind What more I have to say is short, One summer-day I chanced to see The mattock totter'd in his hand; "You're overtask'd, good Simon Lee, At which the poor old Man so long The tears into his eyes were brought, And thanks and praises seem'd to run 3 Mourning, probably because the gratitude was so little deserved, or so disproportionate to the occasion. I here quote again from the poet's notes: "This old man had been huntsman to the squires of Alfoxden, which, at the time we occupied it, belonged to a minor. It is unneces sary to add, the fact was as mentioned in the poem; and I have, after an interval of forty-five years, the image of the old man as fresh as if I had seen him yesterday. The expression when the hounds are out, 'I dearly love their voice,' was word for word from his own lips." A Lawyer art thou? - draw not nigh! Art thou a Man of purple cheer? Or art thou one of gallant pride, Physician art thou? one, all eyes, Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece, A Moralist perchance appears; The harvest of a quiet eye. That broods and sleeps on his own heart But he is weak; both Man and Boy, MATTHEW. In the School of Hawkshead is a tablet, on IF Nature, for a favourite child, Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod: Yet never once doth go astray, And he has neither eyes nor ears; Himself his world, and his own God; One to whose smooth-rubb'd soul can Read o'er these lines; and then review Nor form nor feeling, great or small; [cling Its history of two hundred years. A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, When through this little wreck of fame, And, if a sleeping tear should wake, Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er, Far from the chimney's merry roar, The sighs which Matthew heavcd were Of one tired out with fun and madness; Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup And on that morning, through the grass, Her brow was smooth and white: And by the steaming rills, We travell'd merrily, to pass "Our work," said I, "was well begun; A second time did Matthew stop; "Yon cloud with that long purple cleft A day like this which I have left And just above yon slope of corn With rod and line I sued the sport 4 This and other poems connected with Matthew would not gain by a literal detail To see a child so very fair, No fountain from its rocky cave There came from me a sigh of pain I look'd at her, and look'd again; WE talk'd with open heart, and tongue A pair of friends, though I was young, We lay beneath a spreading oak, of facts. Like the Wanderer in The Ex- Beside a mossy seat; cursion, this School-master was made up And from the turf a fountain broke, of several oth of his class and men of other occupations. I do not ask pardon And gurgled at our fect. for what there is of untruth in such verses, considered stritcly as matters of fact. It" 'Now, Matthew!" said I, "let us mater is enough if, being true and consistent in This water's pleasant tune spirit, they move and teach in a manner not unworthy of a poet's calling.-du- With some old border-song, or catch That suits a Summer's noon; thor's Notes. Or of the church-clock and the chimes In silence Matthew lay, and eyed I live and sing my idle songs And, Matthew, for thy children dead At this he grasp'd my hand, and said, "Alas! that cannot be." We rose up from the fountain-side; And down the smooth descent "No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears; Of the green sheep-track did we glide; |