ON THE AFFECTIONS.

And now we reached the orchard-plot ;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
Came near and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised and never stopped :
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

167

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide Into a lover's head!

"O mercy!" to myself I cried,

"If Lucy should be dead!"

Wordsworth.

SEE the kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall,

Withered leaves-one-two-and three

From the lofty elder tree!

Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair,
Eddying round and round they sink
Softly, slowly one might think,
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed

Sylph or Fairy hither tending,
To this lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,

In his wavering parachute.

-But the Kitten, how she starts

Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!

First at one and then its fellow,

THE KITTEN AND FALLING LEAVES.

Just as light and just as yellow;
There are many now-now one-
Now they stop and there are none:
What intenseness of desire
In her upward eye of fire!

With a tiger-leap, half way
Now she meets the coming prey,
Lets it go as fast, and then

Has it in her power again :

Now she works with three or four,
Like an Indian conjuror;

Quick as he in feats of art,

Far beyond in joy of heart,

Were her antics played in the eye
Of a thousand standers by,
Clapping hands with shout and stare,
What would little Tabby care

For the plaudits of the crowd?

Over happy to be proud,
Over wealthy in the treasure
Of her own exceeding pleasure.

169

Wordsworth.

( 170 )

HUMAN LIFE.

(THE WIFE.)

His house she enters-there to be a light
Shining within, when all without is night;
A guardian-angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing;
Winning him back, when mingling in the throng,
From a vain world we love, alas, too long,
To fireside happiness, and hours of ease
Blest with that charm, the certainty to please.
How oft her eyes read his; her gentle mind
To all his wishes, all his thoughts inclined;
Still subject-ever on the watch to borrow
Mirth of his mirth, and sorrow of his sorrow.
Rogers.

ADONAIS.

MIDST others of less note, came one frail Form,
A phantom among men, companionless
As the last cloud of an expiring storm,
Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,
Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness,

ADONAIS.

Actæon-like, and now he fled astray

171

With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.

A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift

A love in desolation masked ;—a Power
Girt round with weakness;-it can scarce uplift
The weight of the superincumbent hour;
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,

A breaking billow;-even whilst we speak
Is it not broken? On the withering flower
The killing sun smiles brightly on a cheek
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart
may break.

His head was bound with pansies over-blown, And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue; And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew Yet dripping with the forest's noon-day dew, Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart

Shook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crew He came the last, neglected and apart;

A herd-abandoned deer, struck by the hunter's dart.

Shelley.