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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,
'Tis said he once was tall.
Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running Huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is blooming as a cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When Echo bandied, round and round,
The halloo of Simon Lee.

In those proud days, he little cared

For husbandry or tillage;

To blither tasks did Simon rouse

The sleepers of the village.

He all the country could outrun,

Could leave both man and horse behind;

And often, ere the chase 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!

But, oh the heavy change!-bereft

Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see! Old Simon to the world is left

In liveried poverty.

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.

And he is lean and he is sick;

His body, dwindled and awry,

Rests upon ankles swoln and thick ;

His legs are thin and dry.

One prop he has, and only one,
His Wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village Common.

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 it now, the land
Which he can till no longer?

Oft, working by her husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do ;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
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.

D

Few months of life has he in store,
As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.

My gentle Reader, I perceive
How patiently you've waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything.

What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it :

It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This Old Man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock totter'd in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour,

That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee, Give me your tool," to him I said; And at the word right gladly he Received my proffered aid.

I struck, and with a single blow

The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor Old Man so long
And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning ;

Alas! the gratitude of men
Hath oftener left me mourning.

FIDELITY.

A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks;

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.

The Dog is not of mountain breed ;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;

With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;

Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the Creature doing here?

It was a cove, a huge recess,

That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn1 below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,

Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;

From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere ;

Thither the rainbow comes-the cloud-
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;
But that enormous barrier binds it fast.

Not free from boding thoughts, a while
The Shepherd stood: then makes his way
Towards the Dog, o'er rocks and stones,
As quickly as he may ;

Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The Man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the Shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:

He instantly recalled the name,

And who he was, and whence he came ;
Remembered, too, the very day

On which the traveller passed this way.

1 Tarn is a small Mere or Lake, mostly high up in the mountains.

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