My playmate thou shalt be; and when the wind is

cold,

Our hearth shall be thy bed, our house shall be thy fold.

"It will not, will not rest! Poor creature, can it be 50 That 't is 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.

"Alas, the mountain-tops that look so green and fair!

I've heard of fearful winds and darkness that come

there;

55 The little brooks that seem all pastime and all play When they are angry roar like lions for their prey.

"Here thou need'st not dread the raven in the sky; Night and day thou art safe, our cottage is hard by. Why bleat so after me? Why pull so at thy chain? 60 Sleep,—and at break of day I will come to thee again!"

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

belong,

66

For she looked with such a look, and she spake

with such a tone,

That I almost received her heart into my own."

THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.

This arose out of my observation of the affecting music of these birds, hanging in this way in the London streets, during the freshness and stillness of the spring morning.

AT the corner of Wood Street, when daylight

appears,

Hangs a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:

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

5 'T is 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, 10 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: 15 The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise, And the colors have all passed away from her eyes!

7. Lothbury and Cheapside are streets in the heart of the city of London.

TO A SKYLARK.

ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? 5 Thy nest, which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
10 Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam ;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.

TO THE CUCKOO.

O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo shall I call thee Bird,

Or but a wandering Voice?

5 While I am lying on the grass

Thy twofold shout I hear,

From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the vale,
10 Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! Even yet thou art to me

15 No bird, but an invisible thing,

A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my schoolboy days
I listened to; that cry

Which made me look a thousand ways, 20 In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

25 And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace

30 Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place;

That is fit home for thee!

SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT.

SHE was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

5 Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
10 To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;

15 A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

20 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine; A being breathing thoughtful breath, A traveller between life and death; 25 The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a spirit still, and bright 30 With something of angelic light.

THREE YEARS SHE GREW.

THREE years she grew in sun and shower: Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown ;

This child I to myself will take;