9. THE SPARROW's NEST. Look, five blue eggs are gleaming there! Few visions have I seen more fair, Nor many prospects of delight More pleasing than that simple sight! I started seeming to espy The home and shelter'd bed, The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by My Father's House, in wet or dry, My Sister Emmeline and I Together visited. She look'd at it as if she fear'd it; The Blessing of my later years Was with me when a Boy; She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares, and delicate fears; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears; And love, and thought, and joy. 10. GIPSIES. Yet are they here?—the same unbroken knot Men, Women, Children, yea the frame Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light: Their bed of straw and blanket-walls. -Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours, are gone while I Have been a Traveller under open sky, Much witnessing of change and chear, Yet as I left I find them here! 'The weary Sun betook himself to rest. --Then issued Vesper from the fulgent West, The glorious path in which he trod. Behold the mighty Moon! this way She looks as if at them- but they Regard not her:-oh better wrong and strife Better vain deeds or evil than such life! The silent Heavens have goings on; The stars have tasks- but these have none. |