What fond and wayward thoughts will slide Into a Lover's head!

"O mercy!" to myself I cried,

"If Lucy should be dead!"

III.

THREE years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;

This Child I to myself will take:
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse

and with me

The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

"The floating clouds their state shall lend

To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the Storm

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form By silent sympathy.

"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.

"And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell."

Thus Nature spake—The work was donc― How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

IV.

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:

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 on earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

V.

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!

THE FOUNTAIN.

A CONVERSATION.

WE talked with open heart, and tongue

Affectionate 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!"

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed
The spring beneath the tree;
And thus the dear old Man replied;
The grey-haired man of glee :

"No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears; How merrily it goes!

"Twill murmur on a thousand years,

And flow as now it flows.

"And here, on this delightful day,
I cannot choose but think

How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.

"My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirred,

For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.

"Thus fares it still in our decay:
And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what age takes away
Than what it leaves behind.

"The blackbird amid leafy trees, The lark above the hill,

Let loose their carols when they please, Are quiet when they will.

"With Nature never do they wage
A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free:

"But we are pressed by heavy laws; And often, glad no more,

We wear a face of joy, because

We have been glad of yore.

"If there be one who need bemoan His kindred laid in earth,

The household hearts that were his own; It is the man of mirth.

"My days, my Friend, are almost gone, My life has been approved,

And many love me; but by none
Am I enough beloved."

"Now both himself and me he wrongs,

The man who thus complains!

I live and sing my idle songs
Upon these happy plains:

"And, Matthew, for thy children dead I'll be a son to thee!

At this he grasped my hand, and said, "Alas! that cannot be."