5 When last along its banks I wandered,
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border-minstrel led.

The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer,
10 'Mid mouldering ruins low he lies;
And death upon the braes of Yarrow
Has closed the Shepherd-poet's eyes;

Nor has the rolling year twice measured,
From sign to sign, its steadfast course,
15 Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source;

The rapt one, of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth;
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
20 Has vanished from his lonely hearth.

Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!

25 Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers,
"Who next will drop and disappear?"

Our haughty life is crowned with darkness, 30 Like London with its own black wreath, On which, with thee, O Crabbe! forth-looking, I gazed from Hampstead's breezy heath.

As if but yesterday departed,
Thou too art gone before; but why,
35 O'er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered,
Should frail survivors heave a sigh?

Mourn rather for that holy Spirit, Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep; For her who, ere her summer faded, 40 Has sunk into a breathless sleep.

No more of old romantic sorrows,

For slaughtered youth or love-lorn maid!
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,
And Ettrick mourns with her their Poet dead.

RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE.

THERE was a roaring in the wind all night; The rain came heavily and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright; The birds are singing in the distant woods; 5 Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods; The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of

waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

10 The grass is bright with rain-drops; on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist; that, glittering in the sun,

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

39. Felicia Hemans.

15 I was a Traveller then upon the moor; I saw the hare that raced about with joy; I heard the woods and distant waters roar; Or heard them not, as happy as a boy : The pleasant season did my heart employ: 20 My old remembrances went from me wholly ; And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
25 In our dejection do we sink as low;

To me that morning did it happen so;
And fears and fancies thick upon me came;
Dim sadness, and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor
could name.

I heard the skylark warbling in the sky; 30 And I bethought me of the playful hare : Even such a happy child of earth am I; Even as these blissful creatures do I fare; Far from the world I walk, and all from care; But there may come another day to me, 35 Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
40 But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call

Love him, who for himself will take no heed at

all?

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
45 Of him who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough, along the mountain-side:
By our own spirits we are deified :

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and
madness.

50 Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, A leading from above, a something given, Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place,

When I with these untoward thoughts had striven, Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven,

55 I saw a man before me unawares:

The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hairs.

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence,
Wonder to all who do the same espy,

60 By what means it could thither come, and whence:
So that it seems a thing endued with sense;
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself; -

Such seemed this man, not all alive nor dead,
65 Nor all asleep, in his extreme old age:
His body was bent double, feet and head
Coming together in life's pilgrimage;
As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage
Of sickness felt by him in times long past,

70 A more than human weight upon his frame had

cast.

45. Robert Burns.

Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,
Upon a long gray staff of shaven wood:
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,
Upon the margin of that moorish flood
75 Motionless as a cloud the old man stood,
That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
And moveth all together, if it move at all.

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look 80 Upon that muddy water, which he conned, As if he had been reading in a book: And now a stranger's privilege I took; And, drawing to his side, to him did say, "This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."

85 A gentle answer did the old man make,

In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew; And him with further words I thus bespake : "What occupation do you there pursue? This is a lonesome place for one like you." 90 Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise Broke from the sable orbs of his yet vivid eyes.

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, But each in solemn order followed each, With something of a lofty utterance drest,— 95 Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Of ordinary men; a stately speech;

Such as grave

livers do in Scotland use,

Religious men, who give to God and man their dues.

He told, that to these waters he had come 100 To gather leeches, being old and poor: