Thy limbs, are they not strong? And beautiful

This

thou art :

grass is tender grass; these flowers they have

no peers;

And that green cord all day is rustling in thy ears!

"If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy woolYen chain,

This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst

gain;

For rain and mountain-storms! the like thou need'st not fear,

The rain and storm are things that scarcely can come here.

"Rest, little young One, rest; thou hast forgot the day

When

my father found thee first in places far away; Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned

by none,

And thy mother from thy side for evermore was gone.

"He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought thee home :

A blessed day for thee! then whither wouldst thou roam?

A faithful nurse thou hast; the dam that did thee

yean

Upon the mountain-tops no kinder could have been.

"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.

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Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they

are now,

Then I'll yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the plough;

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 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.

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Alas, the mountain-tops that look so green and

fair!

I've heard of fearful winds and darkness that come

there;

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,

hard by.

our cottage is

Why bleat so after me? Why pull so at thy chain? 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;

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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 my own.'

XV.

1800.

TO H. C.

SIX YEARS OLD.

O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought; Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, And fittest to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;

Thou faery voyager! that dost float
In such clear water, that thy boat

May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,

Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;

O blessed vision! happy child!

Thou art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality;

And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest

But when she sat within the touch of thee.

O too industrious folly!

O vain and causeless melancholy!

Nature will either end thee quite ;

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,

Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart. among the full-grown flocks. What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,

Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,

Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.

XVI.

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGI. NATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH.

FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.

[This extract is reprinted from "The Friend."]

WISDOM and Spirit of the universe!
Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought!
And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion! not in vain,

By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn.
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man;
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With life and nature; purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such discipline
Both pain and fear, until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapors rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went