And, while with all a mother's love
She from the lofty rocks above
Sent forth a cry forlorn,

The Lamb, still swimming round and round,

Made answer to that plaintive sound.

When he had learnt what thing it was,
That sent this rueful cry; I ween
The Boy recovered heart, and told
The sight which he had seen.

Both gladly now deferred their task;
Nor was there wanting other aid –
A Poet, one who loves the brooks
Far better than the sages' books,
By chance had hither strayed;
And there the helpless Lamb he found
By those huge rocks encompassed round.

He drew it gently from the pool,
And brought it forth into the light:
The Shepherds met him with his charge,
An unexpected sight!

Into their arms the Lamb they took,

Said they, "He's neither maimed nor scarred."
Then up the steep ascent they hied,
And placed him at his Mother's side;
And gently did the Bard

Those idle Shepherd-boys upbraid,

And bade them better mind their trade.

Harfle

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!

That 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 sate 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 flock.
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.

(This extract is reprinted from "THE FRIEND."}

WISDOM and Spirit of the Universe
Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought'
And givest 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 recognise
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me
With stinted kindness. In November days,
When vapours 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, I homeward went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine:

"T was mine among the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long.

And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed,
I heeded not the summons;-happy time

It was indeed for all of us; for me

It was a time of rapture! - Clear and loud

The village clock tolled six-I wheeled about,

Proud and exulting like an untired horse

That cares not for his home. All shod with steel, We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the Chase

And woodland pleasures, the rescunding horn,

The Pack loud-bellowing, and the hunted hare.

So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle: with the din
Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.

Na seldom from the uproar I retired
into a silent bay,—or sportively

Ganced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a Star,

Ige, that, flying still before me, gleamed
To the glassy plain: and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Sapped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!
Bend me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feesier and feebler, and I stood and watched
Tall was tranquil as a summer sea.*

Yet at this impressive season,

Words which tenderness can speak From the truths of homely reason, Might exalt the loveliest cheek;

And, while shades to shades succeeding,
Steal the landscape from the sight,

I would urge this moral pleading,
Last forerunner of "Good night!"

SUMMER ebbs;-each day that follows
Is a reflux from on high,
Tending to the darksome hollows
Where the frosts of winter lie.

He who governs the creation, In His providence, assigned Such a gradual declination To the life of human kind.

Yet we mark it not;—fruits redden,
Fresh flowers blow, as flowers have blown,
And the heart is loth to deaden
Hopes that she so long hath known.

Be thou wiser, youthful Maiden!
And, when thy decline shall come,
Let not flowers, or boughs fruit-laden,
Hide the knowledge of thy doom.

Now, even now, ere wrapped in slumber,
Fix thine eyes upon the sea

That absorbs time, space, and number;
Look towards Eternity.

Follow thou the flowing River

On whose breast are thither borne
All Deceived, and each Deceiver,
Through the gates of Night and Morn;

Through the year's successive portals;
Through the bounds which many a star
Marks, not mindless of frail mortals,
When his light returns from far.

Thus when Thou with Time hast travelled
Toward the mighty gulf of things,
And the mazy Stream unravelled
With thy best imaginings;

Think, if thou on beauty leanest,
Think how pitiful that stay,
Did not virtue give the meanest
Charms superior to decay.

Duty, like a strict preceptor, Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown; Choose her thistle for thy sceptre, While thy brow youth's roses crown.