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Yet, where the guardian fence is wound,
So subtly are our eyes beguiled
We see not nor suspect a bound,
No more than in some forest wild;
The sight is free as air-or crost
Only by art in nature lost.

And, though the jealous turf refuse
By random footsteps to be prest,
And feed on never-sullied dews,
Ye, gentle breezes from the west,
With all the ministers of hope
Are tempted to this sunny slope.
And hither throngs of birds resort;
Some, inmates lodged in shady nests,"
Some, perched on stems of stately port
That nod to welcome transient guests;
While hare and leveret, seen at play,
Appear not more shut out than they.
Apt emblem (for reproof of pride)
This delicate Enclosure shows
Of modest kindness, that would hide
The firm protection she bestows;
Of manners, like its viewless fence,
Ensuring peace to innocence.

1

Thus spake the moral Muse-her wing Abruptly spreading to depart, She left that farewell offering, Memento for some docile heart; That may respect the good old age When Fancy was Truth's willing Page; And Truth would skim the flowery glade, Though entering but as Fancy's Shade. 1824.

III.

A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound;
Then-all at once the air was still,
And showers of hailstones pattered round.
Where leafless oaks towered high above,
I sat within an undergrove
Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
And all the year the bower is green.
But see! where'er the hailstones drop
The withered leaves all skip and hop;'
There's not a breeze-no breath of air-
Yet here, and there, and every where
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if with pipes and music rare
Some Robin Good-fellow were there,
And all those leaves, in festive glee,
Were dancing to the minstrelsy.

1799.

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93

The wind was roaring, on his knees His youngest born did Andrew hold: And while the rest, a ruddy quire, Were seated round their blazing fire, This Tale the Shepherd told.

II.

"I saw a crag, a lofty stone
As ever tempest beat!

Out of its head an Oak had grown,
A Broom out of its feet.

The time was March, a cheerful noon-
The thaw-wind, with the breath of June,
Breathed gently from the warm south-west:
When, in a voice sedate with age,
This Oak, a giant and a sage,
His neighbour thus addressed :-

III.

'Eight weary weeks, through rock and clay, Along this mountain's edge,

The Frost hath wrought both night and day,
Wedge driving after wedge.

Look up! and think, above your head
What trouble, surely, will be bred;
Last night I heard a crash-'tis true,
The splinters took another road-
I see them yonder-what a load
For such a Thing as you!

IV.

You are preparing as before
To deck your slender shape;

And yet, just three years back-no more—
You had a strange escape:

Down from yon cliff a fragment broke; It thundered down, with fire and smoke, And hitherward pursued its way;

This ponderous block was caught by me, And o'er your head, as you may see, "Tis hanging to this day!

V.

If breeze or bird to this rough steep
Your kind's first seed did bear,
The breeze had better been asleep,
The bird caught in a snare:

For you and your green twigs decoy
The little witless shepherd-boy

To come and slumber in your bower;
And, trust me, on some sultry noon,

Both you and he, Heaven knows how soon!
Will perish in one hour.

VI.

From me this friendly warning take’—
The Broom began to doze,
And thus, to keep herself awake,
Did gently interpose:

'My thanks for your discourse are due;
That more than what you say is true,
I know, and I have known it long;
Frail is the bond by which we hold
Our being, whether young or old,
Wise, foolish, weak, or strong.

VII.

Disasters, do the best we can,
Will reach both great and small;
And he is oft the wisest man

Who is not wise at all.

For me, why should I wish to roam? This spot is my paternal home,

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TO A SEXTON.

LET thy wheel-barrow alone-
Wherefore, Sexton, piling still
In thy bone-house bone on bone?
'Tis already like a hill

In a field of battle made,

Where three thousand skulls are laid;

These died in peace each with the other,

Father, sister, friend, and brother.

Mark the spot to which I point!

From this platform, eight feet square,

Take not even a finger-joint:

Andrew's whole fireside is there.

Here, alone, before thine eyes,
Simon's sickly daughter lies,

From weakness now, and pain defended,
Whom he twenty winters tended.

Look but at the gardener's pride-
How he glories, when he sees
Roses, lilies, side by side,
Violets in families!

By the heart of Man, his tears,
By his hopes and by his fears,
Thou, too heedless, art the Warden
Of a far superior garden.

Thus then, each to other dear,
Let them all in quiet lie,
Andrew there, and Susan here,
Neighbours in mortality.

And, should I live through sun and rain
Seven widowed years without my Jane,
O Sexton, do not then remove her,
Let one grave hold the Loved and Lover!

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IN youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,-
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake,
Of Thee, sweet Daisy !
Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few
grey hairs;

Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,

That she may sun thee;

Whole Summer-fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy Wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight

When rains, are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train, Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane; Pleased at his greeting thee again;

Yet nothing daunted,
Nor grieved if thou be set at nought:
And oft alone in nooks remote
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.

Be violets in their secret mews
The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
Proud be the rose, with rains and dews

Her head impearling.

Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim

The Poet's darling.

* His muse,

If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art!-a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower, Ere thus I have lain couched an hour, Have I derived from thy sweet power

Some apprehension;

Some steady love; some brief delight; Some memory that had taken flight; Some chime of fancy wrong or right;

Or stray invention.

If stately passions in me burn,

And one chance look to Thee should turn, I drink out of an humbler urn

A lowlier pleasure;

The homely sympathy that heeds
The common life our nature breeds;
A wisdom fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure.
Fresh-smitten by the morning ray,
When thou art up, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:

And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.

And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,

To thee am owing;

An instinct call it, a blind sense;
A happy, genial influence,

Coming one knows not how, nor whence,
Nor whither going.

Child of the Year! that round dost run Thy pleasant course,-when day's begun As ready to salute the sun

As lark or leveret,

Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Nor be less dear to future men

Than in old time;-thou not in vain
Art Nature's favourite.*

1802.

VIII.

TO THE SAME FLOWER.
WITH little here to do or see
Of things that in the great world be,
Daisy! again I talk to thee,

For thou art worthy,
Thou unassuming Common-place
Of Nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace
Which Love makes for thee!
Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit, and play with similes.

Loose types of things through all degrees,
Thoughts of thy raising:

See, in Chaucer and the elder Poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower.

And many a fond and idle name
I give to thee, for praise or blan
As is the humour of the game,
While I am gazing.

A nun demure of lowly port;
Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court,
In thy simplicity the sport

Of all temptations;

A queen in crown of rubies drest;
A starveling in a scanty vest;
Are all, as seems to suit thee best,
Thy appellations.

A little cyclops, with one eye
Staring to threaten and defy,

That thought comes next-and instantly
The freak is over,

The shape will vanish-and behold
A silver shield with boss of gold,
That spreads itself some faery bold
In fight to cover!

I see thee glittering from afar-
And then thou art a pretty star;
Not quite so fair as many are

In heaven above thee!

Yet like a star, with glittering crest, Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest ;May peace come never to his nest

Who shall reprove thee!

Bright Flower! for by that name at last,
When all my reveries are past,

I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
Sweet silent creature!

That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature!

1805.

IX.

THE GREEN LINNET.

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head
With brightest sunshine round me sprea
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.
One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:

Hail to Thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion!

Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding Spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May;

And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment:
A Life, a Presence like the Air,
Scattering thy gladness without care
Too blest with any one to pair;

Thyself thy own enjoyment.
Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstacies,

Yet seeming still to hover;

There where the flutter of his wings Upon his back and body flings Shadows and sunny glimmerings,

That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives,
A Brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain

He mocked and treated with disdain The voiceless Form he chose to feign, While fluttering in the bushes.

1803.

X.

TO A SKY-LARK.

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;
Up with me, up with me into the clouds !
Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary And to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me high and high
To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning

Thou art laughing and scorning ;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth
To be such a traveller as I.
Happy, happy Liver,
With a soul as strong as a mountain river
Pouring out praise to the almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;

But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I, with my fate contented, will plod on,
And hope for higher raptures, when life's day
is done.

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Up and down the heavens they go,
Men that keep a mighty rout!
I'm as great as they, I trow,
Since the day I found thee out,
Little Flower!-I'll make a stir,
Like a sage astronomer.
Modest, yet withal an Elf
Bold, and lavish of thyself;

Since we needs must first have met
I have seen thee, high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet
"Twas a face I did not know;
Thou hast now, go where I may,
Fifty greetings in a day.
Ere a leaf is on a bush,

In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about her nest,
Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless Prodigal;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth, or none.
Poets, vain men in their mood!
Travel with the multitude:
Never heed them; I aver
That they all are wanton wooers;
But the thrifty cottager,
Who stirs little out of doors,
Joys to spy thee near her home;
Spring is coming, Thou art come!
Comfort have thou of thy merit,
Kindly, unassuming Spirit!
Careless of thy neighbourhood,
Thou dost show thy pleasant face
On the moor, and in the wood,
In the lane ;-there's not a place,
Howsoever mean it be,

But 'tis good enough for thee.
Ill befal the yellow flowers,
Children of the flaring hours!
Buttercups, that will be seen,
Whether we will see or no ;
Others, too, of lofty mien ;

They have done as worldlings do,
Taken praise that should be thine,
Little, humble Celandine!
Prophet of delight and mirth,
Ill-requited upon earth;

Herald of a mighty band,
Of a joyous train ensuing,
Serving at my heart's command,
Tasks that are no tasks renewing,
I will sing, as doth behove,
Hymns in praise of what I love!
1803.

XII.

TO THE SAME FLOWER.
PLEASURES newly found are sweet
When they lie about our feet:
February last, my heart

First at sight of thee was glad;
All unheard of as thou art,

Thou must needs, I think, have had,'
Celandine! and long ago,

Praise of which I nothing know.

I have not a doubt but he,
Whosoe'er the man might be,

Who the first with pointed rays (Workman worthy to be sainted) Set the sign-board in a blaze, When the rising sun he painted, Took the fancy from a glance At thy glittering countenance. Soon as gentle breezes bring News of winter's vanishing, And the children build their bowers, Sticking 'kerchief-plots of mould All about with full-blown flowers, Thick as sheep in shepherd's fold! With the proudest thou art there, Mantling in the tiny square. Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure, Sighed to think, I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me; Yet I long could overlook Thy bright coronet and Thee, And thy arch and wily ways, And thy store of other praise. Blithe of heart, from week to week Thou dost play at hide-and-seek; While the patient primrose sits Like a beggar in the cold, Thou, a flower of wiser wits, Slipp'st into thy sheltering hold; Liveliest of the vernal train When ye are all out again. Drawn by what peculiar spell, By what charm of sight or smell, Does the dim-eyed curious Bee, Labouring for her waxen cells, Fondly settle upon Thee, Prized above all buds and bells Opening daily at thy side, By the season multiplied? Thou art not beyond the moon, But a thing "beneath our shoon:" Let the bold Discoverer thrid In his bark the polar sea; Rear who will a pyramid; Praise it is enough for me, If there be but three or four Who will love my little Flower. 1803.

XIII.

THE SEVEN SISTERS;

OR,

THE SOLITUDE OF BINNORIE.

I.

"

SEVEN Daughters had Lord Archibald,
All children of one mother:
You could not say in one short day
What love they bore each other.
A garland, of seven lilies, wrought!
Seven Sisters that together dwell;
But he, bold Knight as ever fought,
Their Father, took of them no thought,
He loved the wars so well.

Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully,
The solitude of Binnorie!

II.

Fresh blows the wind, a western wind, And from the shores of Erin,

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