And now, all eyes and feet, hath gained

The middle of the arch.

When list! he hears a piteous moan-
Again-his heart within him dies-
His pulse is stopped, his breath is lost,
He totters, pale as any ghost,
And, looking down, he spies

A lamb, that in the pool is pent
Within that black and frightful rent.

VII.

The lamb had slipped into the stream,
And safe without a bruise or wound
The cataract had borne him down

Into the gulf profound.

His dam had seen him when he fell,
She saw him down the torrent borne;

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.

VIII.

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 thither strayed;
And there the helpless lamb he found,
By those huge rocks encompassed round.

IX.

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.

T

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION 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FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.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 interwine 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 vallies, 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:

"Twas 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 its home.-All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase

And woodland pleasures,-the resounding 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.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay,-or sportively

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng
To cross the bright reflection of a star,

That gleamed upon the ice; 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,

Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs

Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round!

Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

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 fairy 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.

Oh! too industrious folly!

Oh! 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.

Not framed to undergo 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.