'Some say that here a murder has been done, And blood cries out for blood; but, for my part, I've guessed, when I've been sitting in the sun, That it was all for that unhappy hart. 140 'What thoughts must through the creature's brain have passed! Even from the topmost stone upon the steep Are but three bounds; and look, sir, at this last O master, it has been a cruel leap! 'For thirteen hours he ran a desperate race; And in my simple mind we cannot tell What cause the hart might have to love this place, 'Here on the grass perhaps asleep he sank, Lulled by the fountain in the summer-tide; This water was perhaps the first he drank When he had wandered from his mother's side. In April here beneath the scented thorn He heard the birds their morning carols sing; And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born Not half a furlong from that selfsame spring. 'Now, here is neither grass nor pleasant shade, The sun on drearier hollow never shone ; So will it be, as I have often said, Till trees and stones and fountain all are gone.' 'Gray-headed shepherd, thou hast spoken well; Small difference lies between thy creed and mine: This beast not unobserved by Nature fell; His death was mourned by sympathy divine. 150 160 'The Being that is in the clouds and air, For the unoffending creatures whom he loves. 'The pleasure-house is dust-behind, before, 'She leaves these objects to a slow decay, That what we are and have been may be known ; But, at the coming of the milder day, These monuments shall all be overgrown. 'One lesson, shepherd, let us two divide, 170 Taught both by what she shows and what conceals— Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.' 180 THE SPARROW'S NEST. BEHOLD, within the leafy shade, The home and sheltered bed, The sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by Together visited. ΤΟ She looked at it and seemed to fear it, Was with me when a boy: She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; 20 TO A BUTTERFLY. STAY near me-do not take thy flight! Much converse do I find in thee, Historian of my infancy! Float near me; do not yet depart! Dead times revive in thee: Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art, My father's family! O, pleasant, pleasant were the days, The time when in our childish plays A very hunter did I rush Upon the prey:-with leaps and springs I followed on from brake to bush; But she, God love her, feared to brush The dust from off its wings! ΙΟ "MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD.” My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began ; So be it when I shall grow old, The child is father of the man; TO A BUTTERFLY. I'VE watched you now a full half-hour, I know not if you sleep or feed. What joy awaits you, when the breeze This plot of orchard-ground is ours; 10 |