Thus Nature spake. The work was done, — How soon my Lucy's race was run! This heath, this calm and quiet scene; I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD. WANDERED lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils ; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine Ten thousand saw I at a glance, The waves beside them danced, but they In such a jocund company : I gazed, — and gazed, — but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought : For oft when on my couch I lie, And then my heart with pleasure fills, THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN. T the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, There's a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years: -- Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard In the silence of morning the song of the bird. 'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her! She sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees; Bright volumes of vapor through Lothbury glide, And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside. Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale, Down which she so often has tripped with her pail, And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's, The one only dwelling on earth that she loves. She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade, The mist and the river, the hill and the shade: The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise, And the colors have all passed away from her eyes. HART-LEAP WELL. HE Knight had ridden down from With the slow motion of a summer's cloud; He turned aside towards a vassal's door, "Another horse!" that shout the vassal heard, And saddled his best steed, a comely gray; Sir Walter mounted him; he was the third Which he had mounted on that glorious day. Joy sparkled in the prancing courser's eyes; The horse and horseman are a happy pair; But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies, There is a doleful silence in the air. A rout this morning left Sir Walter's hall, That as they galloped made the echoes roar; But horse and man are vanished, one and all; Such race, I think, was never seen before. Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind, The Knight hallooed, he chid and cheered them on With suppliant gestures and upbraidings stern ; But breath and eyesight fail; and one by one The dogs are stretched among the mountain fern. Where is the throng, the tumult of the race? The bugles that so joyfully were blown? - - This chase it looks not like an earthly chase; Sir Walter and the Hart are left alone. The poor Hart toils along the mountain-side; I will not stop to tell how far he fled, Nor will I mention by what death he died ; But now the Knight beholds him lying dead. Dismounting then, he leaned against a thorn ; He had no follower, dog, nor man, nor boy; |