The shepherd went about his daily work
With confident and cheerful thoughts; and now
Sometimes when he could find a leisure hour

He to that valley took his

way, and there

Wrought at the sheepfold. Meanwhile Luke began
To slacken in his duty; and at length
He in the dissolute city gave himself
To evil courses; ignominy and shame
Fell on him, so that he was driven at last
To seek a hiding-place beyond the seas.

There is a comfort in the strength of love;
"Twill make a thing endurable, which else
Would overset the brain, or break the heart:
I have conversed with more than one who well
Remember the old man, and what he was
Years after he had heard this heavy news.
His bodily frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks
He went, and still looked up upon the sun,
And listened to the wind; and as before
Performed all kinds of labour for his sheep,
And for the land his small inheritance.
And to that hollow dell from time to time
Did he repair, to build the fold of which
His flock had need. 'Tis not forgotten yet
The pity which was then in every heart
For the old man-and 'tis believed by all
That many and many a day he thither went,
And never lifted up a single stone.

There, by the sheepfold, sometimes was he seen Sitting alone, with that his faithful dog,

Then old, beside him, lying at his feet.

The length of full seven years from time to time

K

He at the building of this sheepfold wrought,
And left the work unfinished when he died.
Three years, or little more, did Isabel

Survive her husband: at her death the estate
Was sold, and went into a stranger's hand.

The cottage which was named THE EVENING STAR
Is gone the ploughshare has been through the ground
On which it stood; great changes have been wrought
In all the neighbourhood:-yet the oak is left
That grew beside their door; and the remains
Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen

Beside the boisterous brook of Greenhead Ghyll.

POEMS OF SENTIMENT AND

REFLECTION.

EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY.

"WHY, William, on that old gray stone,

Thus for the length of half a day,

Why, William, sit you thus alone,

And dream your time away?

"Where are your books? that light bequeathed

To beings else forlorn and blind!

Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.

"You look round on your mother earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you:
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply-

"The eye--it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against, or with our will.

"Nor less I deem that there are powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.

"Think you, mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

"Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,

I sit upon this old gray stone,
And dream my time away."

THE TABLES TURNED.

AN EVENING SCENE, ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

UP! up! my friend, and quit your books: Or surely you 'll grow double:

Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks.
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless-
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:
We murder to dissect.

Enough of science and of art;

Close up these barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY.

A PLAGUE on your languages, German and Norse!
Let me have the song of the kettle:

And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse,
That gallops away with such fury and force,
On his dreary dull plate of black metal.*

See that fly,-
-a disconsolate creature! perhaps.
A child of the field or the grove;

And, sorrow for him! the dull treacherous heat
Has seduced the poor fool from his winter retreat,
And he creeps to the edge of my stove.

* An allusion to the galloping horse of the house of Brunswick, commonly seen on North German stoves.