STAR-GAZERS.

WHAT crowd is this-what have we here? we must not

pass it by ;

A telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky;
Long is it as a barber's pole, or mast of little boat,

Some little pleasure-skiff that doth on Thames's waters float.

The showman chooses well his place, 'tis Leicester's busy square;

And is as happy in his night, for the heavens are blue and fair;

Calm, though impatient, is the crowd; each stands ready with the fee,

Impatient till his moment comes-what an insight must it be!

Yet, showman, where can lie the cause? Shall thy implement have blame,

A boaster, that when he is tried, fails, and is put to shame? Or is it good as others are, and be their eyes in fault ? Their eyes, or minds? or, finally, is yon resplendent vault ?

Is nothing of that radiant pomp so good as we have here? Or gives a thing but small delight that never can be dear? The silver moon, with all her vales, and hills of mightiest fame,

Do they betray us when they're seen-or are they but a name?

-Or is it rather that conceit rapacious is and strong,

And bounty never yields so much but it seems to do her

wrong?

Or is it, that when human souls a journey long have had, And are returned into themselves, they cannot but be sad?

Or must we be constrained to think that these spectators rude,

Poor in estate, of manners base, men of the multitude, Have souls which never yet have risen, and therefore prostrate lie?

No, no, this cannot be-men thirst for power and majesty!

Does, then, a deep and earnest thought the blissful mind employ

Of him who gazes, or has gazed? a grave and steady joy, That doth reject all show of pride, admits no outward sign, Because not of this noisy world, but silent and divine !

Whatever be the cause, 'tis sure that they who pry and pore Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before. One after one they take their turn, nor have I one espied That doth not slackly go away, as if dissatisfied.

RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE.

THERE was a roaring in the wind all night; The rain came heavily, and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright; The birds are singing in the distant woods; Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods; The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

The grass is bright with rain-drops; on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist; that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

I was a traveller then upon the moor: I saw the hare that raced about with joy; I heard the woods and distant waters roar, Or heard them not, as happy as a boy : The pleasant season did my heart employ : My old remembrances went from me wholly ; And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy !

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,

As high as we have mounted in delight

In our dejection do we sink as low,

To me that morning did it happen so,

And fears and fancies thick upon me came;

Dim sadness-and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

I heard the skylark singing in the sky;
And I bethought me of the playful hare :
Even such a happy child of earth am I;
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
But there may come another day to me—
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought
As if life's business were a summer mood:
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy
Behind his plough upon the mountain side :
By our own spirits are we deified;

We poets in our youth begin in gladness;

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,
A leading from above, a something given,

Yet it befel, that in this lonely place,

And I with these untoward thoughts had striven, Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven

I saw a man before me unawares :

The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hairs.

My course I stopped as soon as I espied
The old man in that naked wilderness :
Close by a pond upon the farther side
He stood alone: a minute's space I guess
I watched him, he continued motionless :
To the pool's farther margin then I drew,
He being all the while before me full in view.

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence,
Wonder to all who do the same espy

By what means it could thither come and whence,
So that it seems a thing endued with sense :
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, which on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

Such seemed this man, not all alive nor dead, Nor all asleep in his extreme old age: His body was bent double, feet and head Coming together in life's pilgrimage, As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage Of sickness felt by him in times long past, A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

Himself he propped, his body, limbs, and face,
Upon a long gray staff of shaven wood;