There dwelt we, as happy as birds in their bowers;

Unfettered as bees that in gardens abide; We could do what we liked with the land, it was ours;

And for us the brook murmured that ran by its side.

But now we are strangers, go early or late; And often, like one overburthened with sin, With my hand on the latch of the half-opened gate, in!

I look at the fields, but I cannot go

When I walk by the hedge on a bright summer's

day,

Or sit in the shade of my grandfather's tree, A stern face it puts on, as if ready to say, "What ails you, that you must come creeping to me !"

With our pastures about us, we could not be sad;

Our comfort was near if we ever were crost; But the comfort, the blessings, and wealth that we had,

We slighted them all,-and our birth-right was

lost.

Oh, ill-judging sire of an innocent son

Who must now be a wanderer! but peace to that strain!

Think of evening's repose when our labour was done,

The sabbath's return, and its leisure's soft chain !

And in sickness, if night had been sparing of sleep,

How cheerful, at sunrise, the hill where I stood, Looking down on the kine, and our treasure of sheep

That besprinkled the field; 'twas like youth in my blood!

Now I cleave to the house, and am dull as a snail;

And, oftentimes, hear the church-bell with a sigh,

That follows the thought-We've no land in the vale,

Save six feet of earth where our forefathers lie! 1804.

XXIV.

THE AFFLICTION OF MARGARET

1.

WHERE art thou, my beloved Son,
Where art thou, worse to me than dead?
Oh find me, prosperous or undone !
Or, if the grave be now thy bed,
Why am I ignorant of the same
That I may rest; and neither blame
Nor sorrow may attend thy name?

II.
Seven
alas! to have received
years,
No tidings of an only child;
To have despaired, have hoped, believed,
And been for evermore beguiled;
Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
I catch at them, and then I miss ;
Was ever darkness like to this?

III.

He was among the prime in worth,
An object beauteous to behold;
Well born, well bred; I sent him forth
Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:
If things ensued that wanted grace,
As hath been said, they were not base;
And never blush was on my face.

IV.

Ah! little doth the young-one dream,
When full of play and childish cares,
What power is in his wildest scream,
Heard by his mother unawares !
He knows it not, he cannot guess:
Years to a mother bring distress;
But do not make her love the less.
V.

Neglect me! no, I suffered long
From that ill thought; and, being blind,
Said, "Pride shall help me in my wrong,
Kind mother have I been, as kind
As ever breathed:" and that is true;
I've wet my path with tears like dew,
Weeping for him when no one knew.

VI.

My Son, if thou be humbled, poor,
Hopeless of honour and of gain,
Oh! do not dread thy mother's door;
Think not of me with grief and pain:
I now can see with better eyes;
And worldly grandeur I despise,
And fortune with her gifts and lies.

VII.

Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings,
And blasts of heaven will aid their flight;
They mount-how short a voyage brings
The wanderers back to their delight!
Chains tie us down by land and sea;
And wishes, vain as mine, may be
All that is left to comfort thee.

VIII.

Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan,
Maimed, mangled by inhuman men ;
Or thou upon a desert thrown
Inheritest the lion's den;

Or hast been summoned to the deep,
Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep
An incommunicable sleep.

IX.

I look for ghosts; but none will force Their way to me: 'tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Between the living and the dead: For, surely, then I should have sight Of him I wait for day and night, With love and longings infinite.

X.

My apprehensions come in crowds;
I dread the rustling of the grass;
The very shadows of the clouds
Have power to shake me as they pass:
I question things and do not find
One that will answer to my mind;
And all the world appears unkind.

XI.

Beyond participation lie

My troubles, and beyond relief: If any chance to heave a sigh,

DEPARTED Child! I could forget thee once
Though at my bosom nursed; this woeful gain
Thy dissolution brings, that in my soul
Is present and perpetually abides

A shadow, never, never to be displaced
By the returning substance, seen or touched,
Seen by mine eyes, or clasped in my embrace.
Absence and death how differ they! and how
Shall I admit that nothing can restore
What one short sigh so easily removed?--
Death, life, and sleep, reality and thought
Assist me, God, their boundaries to know,
O teach me calm submission to thy Will!

The Child she mourned had overstepped the pale

Of Infancy, but still did breathe the air
That sanctifies its confines, and partook
Reflected beams of that celestial light
To all the Little-ones on sinful earth
Not unvouchsafed-a light that warmed and
cheered

Those several qualities of heart and mind
Which, in her own blest nature, rooted deep,
Daily before the Mother's watchful eye,
And not hers only, their peculiar charms
Unfolded,-beauty, for its present self,
And for its promises to future years,
With not unfrequent rapture fondly hailed.

Have you espied upon a dewy lawn
A pair of Leverets each provoking each
To a continuance of their fearless sport,
Two separate Creatures in their several gifts
Abounding, but so fashioned that, in all
That Nature prompts them to display, their

looks,

Their starts of motion and their fits of rest,
An undistinguishable style appears
And character of gladness, as if Spring

Lodged in their innocent bosoms, and the spirit Of the rejoicing morning were their own?

Such union, in the lovely Girl maintained
And her twin Brother, had the parent seen
Ere, pouncing like a ravenous bird of prey,
Death in a moment parted them, and left
The Mother, in her turns of anguish, worse
Than desolate; for oft-times from the sound
Of the survivor's sweetest voice (dear child,
He knew it not) and from his happiest looks
Did she extract the food of self-reproach,
As one that lived ungrateful for the stay
By Heaven afforded to uphold her maimed
And tottering spirit. And full oft the Boy,
Now first acquainted with distress and grief,
Shrunk from his Mother's presence, shunned
with fear

Her sad approach, and stole away to find,
In his known haunts of joy where'er he might,
A more congenial object. But, as time
Softened her pangs and reconciled the child
To what he saw, he gradually returned,
Like a scared Bird encouraged to renew
A broken intercourse; and, while his eyes
Were yet with pensive fear and gentle awe
Turned her who bore him, she would stoop
To imprint a kiss that lacked not power to
spread

upon

Faint colour over both their pallid cheeks, And stilled his tremulous lip. Thus they were calmed

And cheered; and now together breathe fresh air

In open fields; and when the glare of day
Is gone, and twilight to the Mother's wish
Befriends the observance, readily they join
In walks whose boundary is the lost One's

grave,

When from these lofty thoughts I woke,
"What is it," said I, "that you bear,
Beneath the covert of your Cloak,
Protected from this cold damp air?"

She answered, soon as she the question heard, "A simple burthen, Sir, a little Singing-bird." And, thus continuing, she said, "I had a Son, who many a day Sailed on the seas, but he is dead; In Denmark he was cast away:

And I have travelled weary miles to see If aught which he had owned might still remain for me.

The bird and cage they both were his :
'Twas my Son's bird; and neat and trim
He kept it: many voyages

The singing-bird had gone with him;
When last he sailed, he left the bird behind.
From bodings, as might be, that hung upon his
mind.

He to a fellow-lodger's care

Had left it, to be watched and fed, And pipe its song in safety ;-there I found it when my Son was dead; I bear it with me, Sir;-he took so much deAnd now, God help me for my little wit! light in it.'

1800.

XXVIII.

THE CHILDLESS FATHER. "UP, Timothy, up with your staff and away! Not a soul in the village this morning will stay; The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,

And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds."

there

Amusement, where the Mother does not miss
Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf
In prayer, yet blending with that solemn rite
Of pious faith the vanities of grief;
For such, by pitying Angels and by Spirits
Transferred to regions upon which the clouds
Of our weak nature rest not, must be deemed
Those willing tears, and unforbidden sighs,
And all those tokens of a cherished sorrow,
Which, soothed and sweetened by the grace of
Heaven

As now it is, seems to her own fond heart,
Immortal as the love that it being.

XXVII.

gave

THE SAILOR'S MOTHER.

ONE morning (raw it was and wet-
A foggy day in winter time)

A Woman on the road I met,

Not old, though something past her prime: Majestic in her person, tall and straight; And like a Roman matron's was her mien and gait.

The ancient spirit is not dead;

Old times, thought I, are breathing there;
Proud was I that my country bred
Such strength, a dignity so fair:

She begged an alms, like one in poor estate; I looked at her again, nor did my pride abate.,

On the slopes of the pastures all colours were

XXIX.

THE EMIGRANT MOTHER.

ONCE in a lonely hamlet I sojourned

In which a Lady driven from France did dwell; The big and lesser griefs with which she mourned,

In friendship she to me would often tell.
This Lady, dwelling upon British ground,
Where she was childless, daily would repair
To a poor neighbouring cottage; as I found,
For sake of a young Child whose home was
there.

Once having seen her clasp with fond embrace
This Child, I chanted to myself a lay,
Endeavouring, in our English tongue, to trace
Such things as she unto the Babe might say:
And thus, from what I heard and knew, or
guessed,

My song the workings of her heart expressed.

Dear Baby! I must lay thee down;
Thou troublest me with strange alarms;
Smiles hast thou, bright ones of thy own;
I cannot keep thee in my arms;
For they confound me ;-where-where is
That last, that sweetest smile of his?

VI.

Oh! how I love thee !-we will stay
Together here this one half day.
My sister's child, who bears my name,
From France to sheltering England came;
She with her mother crossed the sea;
The babe and mother near me dwell:
Yet does my yearning heart to thee
Turn rather, though I love her well:
Rest, little Stranger, rest thee here!
Never was any child more dear!

VII.

-I cannot help it; ill intent
I've none, my pretty Innocent!
I weep-I know they do thee wrong,
These tears-and my poor idle tongue.
Oh, what a kiss was that! my cheek
How cold it is! but thou art good;
Thine eyes are on me-they would speak,
I think, to help me if they could.
Blessings upon that soft, warm face,
My heart again is in its place!

VIII.

While thou art mine, my little Love,
This cannot be a sorrowful grove;
Contentment, hope, and mother's glee,
I seem to find them all in thee:
Here's grass to play with, here are flowers;
I'll call thee by my darling's name ;
Thou hast, I think, a look of ours,
Thy features seem to me the same;
His little sister thou shalt be;

And, when once more my home I see,
I'll tell him many tales of Thee."

1802.

XXX.

VAUDRACOUR AND JULIA.

The following tale was written as an Episode, in a work from which its length may perhaps exclude it. The facts are true; no invention as to these has been exercised, as none was needed.

O HAPPY time of youthful lovers (thus
My story may begin) O balmy time,
In which a love-knot on a lady's brow
Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven!
To such inheritance of blessed fancy
(Fancy that sports more desperately with minds
Than ever fortune hath been known to do)
The high-born Vaudracour was brought, by