That errand-bound 'Prentice was passing in hasteWhat matter! he's caught—and his time runs to wasteThe News-man is stopped, though he stops on the fret, And the half-breathless Lamp-lighter he's in the net! The Porter sits down on the weight which he bore; He stands, back'd by the Wall;-he abates not his din; O blest are the Hearers, and proud be the Hand That tall Man, a Giant in bulk and in height, There's a Cripple who leans on his Crutch; like a Tower While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound. Now, Coaches and Chariots, roar on like a stream; Here are twenty souls happy as Souls in a dream : They are deaf to your murmurs-they care not for you, Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue! XVI. STEPPING WESTWARD. While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sun-set, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What you are stepping westward?" "What you are stepping westward?”—“ Yea.” -Twould be a wildish destiny, If we, who thus together roam In a strange Land, and far from home, The dewy ground was dark and cold; I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound The voice was soft, and she who spake The very sound of courtesy:. Its power was felt; and while my eye A human sweetness with the thought XVII. GLEN-ALMAIN, OR THE NARROW GLEN. In this still place, remote from men, Of stormy war, and violent death; And should, methinks, when all was past, Have rightfully been laid at last Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent As by a spirit turbulent; Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild, And every thing unreconciled; In some complaining, dim retreat, For fear and melancholy meet; But this is calm; there cannot be A more entire tranquillity. |