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THE PET LAMB.

45

"Thou know'st that twice a day I have brought thee in

this can

Fresh water from the brook, as clear as ever ran;

And twice in the day, when the ground is wet with dew, I bring thee draughts of milk, warm milk it is and

new.

"It will not, will not rest! poor creature, can it be That 'tis thy mother's heart which is working so in thee?

Things that I know not of belike to thee are dear,

And dreams of things which thou canst neither see nor hear."

As homeward through the lane I went with lazy feet,
This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat;

And it seemed, as I retraced the ballad line by line,
That but half of it was hers, and one-half of it was mine.

Again, and once again, did I repeat the song ;

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Nay," said I, more than half to the damsel must belong,

For she looked with such a look, and she spake with such

a tone,

That I almost received her heart into mine own."

WORDSWORTH.

46

POOR SUSAN.

POOR SUSAN.

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, There's a thrush that sings loud,

years;

it has sung for three

Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;

Bright volumes of vapor through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripped with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

She looks, and her heart is in heaven; but they fade, -
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade:
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colors have all passed away from her eyes.

WORDSWORTH.

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48

LUCY GRAY; OR, SOLITUDE.

"To-night will be a stormy night, -
You to the town must go ;

And take a lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow."

"That, father, will I gladly do;

'Tis scarcely afternoon,

The minster clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon."

At this the father raised his hook
And snapped a fagot band;
He plied his work; and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe;
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down,
And many a hill did Lucy climb,
But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

LUCY GRAY; OR, SOLITUDE.

At daybreak on a hill they stood

That overlooked the moor,

And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.

You yet may spy the fawn at play,

The hare upon the green;

But the sweet face of Lucy Gray

Will never more be seen.

And, turning homeward, now they cried,

"In heaven we all shall meet!

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When in the snow the mother spied

The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downward from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the footmarks small,
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone wall;

And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
The footmarks one by one,

Into the middle of the plank;

And farther were there none !

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