What's that which on your arm you bear?"

She answered, soon as she the question heard, "A simple burthen, Sir, a little Singing-bird.”

And, thus continuing, she said, "I had a Son, who many a day

Sailed on the seas; but he is dead;

In Denmark he was cast away;

And I have travelled far as Hull, to see

What clothes he might have left, or other property.

"The Bird and Cage they both were his;

"Twas my Son's Bird; and neat and trim

He kept it: many voyages

His Singing-bird hath gone with him ;

When last he sailed he left the Bird behind;

As it might be, perhaps, from bodings of his mind.

"He to a Fellow-lodger's care

Had left it, to be watched and fed,

Till he came back again; and there

I found it when my Son was dead;
And now, God help me for my little wit!

I trail it with me, Sir! he took so much delight in it."

1

XVIII.

THE CHILDLESS FATHER.

"UP, Timothy, up with your Staff and away!
Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;
The Hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,
And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds."

-Of coats and of jackets gray, scarlet, and green,
On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen;
With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow,
The Girls on the hills made a holiday show.

The bason of box-wood*, just six months before,
Had stood on the table at Timothy's door;

A Coffin through Timothy's threshold had past;
One Child did it bear, and that Child was his last.

* In several parts of the North of England, when a funeral takes place, a bason full of Sprigs of Box-wood is placed at the door of the house from which the Coffin is taken up, and each person who attends the funeral ordinarily takes a Sprig of this Box-wood, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.

Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray,
The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark away!

Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut
With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.

Perhaps to himself at that moment he said,
"The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead."
But of this in my ears not a word did he speak,
And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.

WHERE art thou, my beloved Son,
Where art thou, worse to me than dead?

Oh find me, prosperous or undone!
Or, if the grave be now thy bed,
Why am I ignorant of the same
That I may rest; and neither blame
Nor sorrow may attend thy name?

Seven years, alas! to have received
No tidings of an only child;

To have despaired, and have believed,
And be for evermore beguiled;
Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
I catch at them, and then I miss
Was ever darkness like to this?

He was among the prime in worth,
An object beauteous to behold;

Well born, well bred; I sent him forth
Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:

If things ensued that wanted grace,

As hath been said, they were not base;
And never blush was on my face.

Ah! little doth the Young One dream,
When full of play and childish cares,
What power hath even his wildest scream,
Heard by his Mother unawares!

He knows it not, he cannot guess:
Years to a Mother bring distress ;

But do not make her love the less.

Neglect me! no, I suffer'd long
From that ill thought; and, being blind,
Said, "Pride shall help me in my wrong:

Kind mother have I been, as kind

As ever breathed:" and that is true;
I've wet my path with tears like dew,
Weeping for him when no one knew.