No strife disturbs his Sister's breast; She wars not with the mystery

Of time and distance, night and day, The bonds of our humanity.

Her joy is like an instinct, joy
Of kitten, bird, or summer fly;

She dances, runs without an aim,
She chatters in her ecstasy.

Her Brother now takes up the note,
And echoes back his Sister's glee;
They hug the Infant in my arms,
As if to force his sympathy.

Then, settling into fond discourse, We rested in the garden bower; While sweetly shone the evening sun In his departing hour.

We told o'er all that we had done,Our rambles by the swift brook's side Far as the willow-skirted pool

Where two fair swans together glide.

We talked of change, of winter gone,
Of green leaves on the hawthorn spray,
Of birds that build their nests and sing,
And "all since Mother went away!"

To her these tales they will repeat,
To her our new-born tribes will shew,
The goslings green, the ass's colt,
The lambs that in the meadow go.

-But, see, the evening Star comes forth!

To bed the Children must depart;

A moment's heaviness they feel,

A sadness at the heart:

"Tis gone-and in a merry fit

They run up stairs in

gamesome race;

I too, infected by their mood,

I could have joined the wanton chase.

Five minutes past-and Oh the change!

Asleep upon their beds they lie;
Their busy limbs in perfect rest,

And closed the sparkling eye.

VII.

LUCY GRAY,

Or Solitude.

OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the Wild,

I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary Child.

No Mate, no comrade Lucy knew; She dwelt on a wide Moor,

-The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the Fawn at play,

The Hare upon the Green;

But the sweet face of Lucy Gray

Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night

You to the Town must go;

And take a lantern, Child, to light

Your mother through the snow."

"That, Father! will I gladly do; "Tis scarcely afternoon→

The Minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the Moon."

At this the Father raised his hook

And snapped a faggot-band;

He plied his work;-and Lucy took

The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:

With many a wanton stroke

Her feet disperse the powdery snow,

That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:

She wandered up and down;

And many a hill did Lucy climb;

But never reached the Town.

The wretched Parents all that night

Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight

To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the Moor;

And thence they saw the Bridge of wood,

A furlong from their door.

And, turning homeward, now they cried

"In Heaven we all shall meet!"

-When in the snow the Mother spied

The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downward from the steep hill's edge

They tracked the footmarks small;

And through the broken hawthorn-hedge,

And by the long stone-wall:

And then an open field they crossed:

The marks were still the same;

They tracked them on, nor ever lost;

And to the Bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank

The footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;

And further there were none!