LINES

Written at a small distance from my house and sent by my little boy to the

person to whom they are
addressed.

IT is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before,

The red-breast 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 Kalendar:

We from to day, my friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now and universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth,

-It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than fifty years of reason;

Our minds shall drink at every porę

The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts may make,

Which they shall long obey;

We for the year to come may take

Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed Power that rolls

About, below, above;

We'll frame the measure of our souls, They shall be tuned to Love.

Then come, my sister! come, I pray, With speed put on your woodland dress, And bring no book; for this one day We'll give to idleness.

SIMON LEE,

THE OLD HUNTSMAN,

WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED.

IN the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old man dwells, a little man,
I've heard he once was tall.
Of years he has upon his back,
No doubt, a burthen weighty;
He says he is three score and ten,
But others say he's eighty.
A long blue livery-coat has he,
That's fair behind, and fair before;
Yet, meet him where you will, you see

At once that he is poor.

Full five and twenty years he lived

A running huntsman inerry;

And, though he has but one eye left,
His cheek is like a cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And no man was so full of glee;
To say the least, four counties round
Had heard of SIMON LEE;

His master's dead, and no one now
Dwells in the hall of Ivor;

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
He is the sole survivor.

His hunting feats have him bereft

Of his right eye, as you may see:
And then, what limbs those feats have left
To poor old Simon Lee!

He has no son, he has no child,

His wife an aged woman,

Lives with him near the water-fall,

Upon the village common.

And he is lean and he is sick,

His little body's half awry,

His ancles they are swoln and thick;

His legs are thin and dry.

When he was young he little knew

Of husbandry or tillage;

And now he's forced to work, though weak,

-The weakest in the village.

He all the country could outrun,

Could leave both man and horse behind;

And often, ere the race was done,

He reeled and was stone-blind.

And still there's something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;

For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices!

Old Ruth works out of doors with him,
And does what Simon cannot do;

For she, not over stout of limb,
Is stouter of the two.

And though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
Alas! 'tis very little, all

Which they can do between them.
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 the land to them,
Which they can till no longer?

Few months of life has he in store,

As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more

His poor old ancles swell.