If he be one that feels, with skill to part
False praise from true, or greater from the less,
Thee will he welcome to his hand and heart,
Thou monument of peaceful happiness!

With thee he will not dread a toilsome day,
His powerful servant, his inspiring mate!
And, when thou art past service, worn away,
Thee a surviving soul shall consecrate.

His thrift thy uselessness will never scorn;
An heirloom in his cottage wilt thou be:
High will he hang thee up, and will adorn
His rustic chimney with the last of thee!

TO MY SISTER.

WRITTEN AT A SMALL DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE,
AND SENT BY MY LITTLE BOY.

It is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before,
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you; and pray
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

No joyous forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:

We from to-day, my friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now a universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth:

It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than fifty years of reason;

Our minds shall drink at every pore

The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,

Which they shall long obey:

We for the year to come may take

Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessèd power that rolls

About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls:

They shall be turned to love.

Then come, my

sister! come, I

pray,

With speed put on your woodland dress:

And bring no book: for this one day

We'll give to idleness.

TO A YOUNG LADY,

WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING LONG
WALKS IN THE COUNTRY.

DEAR child of nature, let them rail!
There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold,

Where thou, a wife and friend, shalt see
Thy own delightful days, and be
A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd-boy,
And treading among flowers of joy,
That at no season fade,

Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing
A woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee when gray hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.

LINES

WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played;
Their thoughts I cannot measure:
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

From heaven if this belief be sent,
If such be nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN,

WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED.

IN the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old man dwells, a little man,
"Tis said he once was tall.
Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is blooming as a cherry.

Worn out by hunting feats-bereft
By time of friends and kindred, see!
Old Simon to the world is left
In liveried poverty.

His master's dead, and no one now
Dwells in the hall of Ivor;

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
He is the sole survivor.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When echo bandied, round and round,
The halloo of Simon Lee.

In those proud days, he little cared
For husbandry or tillage;

To blither tasks did Simon rouse
The sleepers of the village.

He all the country could outrun.

Could leave both man and horse behind;
And often, ere the chase was done,
He reeled and was stone-blind.

And still there's something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;

For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices!

But he is lean and he is sick,
His body, dwindled and awry,

Rests upon ankles swoll'n and thick,

His legs are thin and dry.

One prop he has, an only one,

His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village common.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.

This scrap of land he from the heath
Inclosed when he was stronger;

"Rut what," saith he, "avails the land Which I can till no longer?"