The boy recover'd heart, and told
The sight which he had seen.

Both gladly now deferr'd their task;
Nor was there wanting other aid ;—
A poet, one who loves the brooks
Far better than the sages' books,
By chance had thither stray'd;

And there the helpless lamb he found,
By those huge rocks encompass'd round.

He drew it gently from the pool,

And brought it forth into the light:

The shepherds met him with his charge,

An unexpected sight!

Into their arms the lamb they took,

Said they, "He's neither maimed nor scarred."

Then up the steep ascent they hied,

And placed him at his mother's side;
And gently did the Bard

Those idle shepherd-boys upbraid,

And bade them better mind their trade.

TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE,

Six Years Old.

O THOU ! whose fancies from afar are brought; Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, And fittest to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; Thou fairy voyager! that dost float

In such clear water, that thy boat

May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;

Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,

Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;

O blessed vision! happy child!

That art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality;

And grief, uneasy lover! never rest

But when she sate within the touch of thee.

Oh! too industrious folly !

Oh! vain and causeless melancholy !

Nature will either end thee quite,

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,

Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.

What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth. Not framed to undergo unkindly shocks;

Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem that glitters while it lives;

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.

THE BROTHERS.

"THESE tourists, Heaven preserve us ! needs must live A profitable life: some glance along

Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
And they were butterflies to wheel about
Long as the summer lasted : some, as wise,
Upon the forehead of a jutting crag

Sit perch'd, with book and pencil on their knee,
And look and scribble, scribble on and look,
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn.
But, for that moping son of idleness-
Why can he tarry yonder?-In our churchyard
Is neither epitaph nor monument,

Tombstone nor name-only the turf we tread
And a few natural graves." To Jane, his wife,
Thus spake the homely priest of Ennerdale.
It was a July evening; and he sate

Upon the long stone seat beneath the eaves
Of his old cottage,-as it chanced, that day,
Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone
His wife sat near him, teasing matted wool.
While, from the twin cards, toothed with glittering wire,
He fed the spindle of his youngest child,

Who turn'd her large round wheel in the open air

With back and forward steps. Towards the field

In which the parish chapel stood alone,

Girt round with a bare ring of

mossy wall,

While half an hour went by, the Priest had sent
Many a long look of wonder: and at last,

Risen from his seat, beside the snow-white ridge
Of carded wool which the old man had piled,
He laid his implements with gentle care,
Each in the other locked; and down the path
Which from his cottage to the churchyard led,
He took his way, impatient to accost

The stranger, whom he saw still lingering there.

'Twas one well known to him in former days,
A shepherd-lad ;-who ere his sixteenth year,
Had left that calling, tempted to entrust
His expectations to the fickle winds
And perilous waters, -with the mariners

A fellow-mariner,—and so had fared

Through twenty seasons; but he had been rear'd
Among the mountains, and he in his heart
Was half a shepherd on the stormy seas.
Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds

Of caves and trees :—and when the regular wind

Between the tropics fill'd the steady sail,

And blew with the same breath through days and weeks,

Lengthening invisibly its weary line

Along the cloudless main, he in those hours

Of tiresome indolence, would often hang

Over the vessel's side, and gaze and gaze;

And, while the broad green wave and sparkling foam
Flash'd round him images and hues that wrought

In union with the employment of his heart,

He, thus by feverish passion overcome,