"SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNtrodden WAYS." Published 1800.

Composed 1799

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love;

A violet by a mossy stone

Half-hidden from the eye!

Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

"I TRAVELled among UNKNOWN MEN.”

Composed 1799.

Published 1800.

I TRAVELLED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;

Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire ;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine is too the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

"A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL."

Composed 1799.

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

Published 1800.

She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Composed 1799.

A POET'S EPITAPH.

Published 1800.

ART thou a Statesman in the van
Of public conflicts trained and bred?
-First learn to love one living man;
Then may'st thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou?-draw not nigh!
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?
A rosy Man, right plump to see?
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near, (15)
This grave no cushion is for thee.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,
A Soldier and no man of chaff ?
Welcome !--but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.

Physician art thou? one, all eyes,
Philosopher! a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanise
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside, and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
Thy ever-dwindling soul, away!

A Moralist perchance appears;

Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:
And he has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God;

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;

Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove ;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed ;
And impulses of deeper birth

Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,--
The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak; both Man and Boy,
Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.

-Come hither in thy hour of strength;
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length;
Or build thy house upon this grave.

Composed 1799.

MATTHEW. (14)

IF Nature, for a favourite child,

Published 1800.

In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears

In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.

-When through this little wreck of fame,

Cipher and syllable! thine eye

Has travelled down to Matthew's name,
Pause with no common sympathy.

And, if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed:

For Matthew a request I make

Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,
Is silent as a standing pool :
Far from the chimney's merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.

The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
Were tears of light, the dews of gladness.

Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up-
He felt with spirit so profound.

-Thou soul of God's best earthly mould !
Thou happy soul! and can it be
That these two words of glittering gold
Are all that must remain of thee?

THE FOUNTAIN.

A CONVERSATION.

Composed 1799.

Published 1800.

WE talked with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,

A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,

Beside a mossy seat;

And from the turf a fountain broke,

And gurgled at our feet.

"Now, Matthew!" said I, "let us match

This water's pleasant tune

With some old Border song, or catch,

That suits a summer's noon;

Or of the church clock and the chimes

Sing here beneath the shade,

That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made!"