A day like this which I have left

Full thirty years behind.

"And just above yon slope of corn

Such colors, and no other,

Were in the sky that April morn,

Of this the very brother.

"With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

And, to the church-yard come, stopped short

Beside my daughter's grave.

"Nine summers had she scarcely seen, The pride of all the vale;

And then she sang, she would have been
A very nightingale.

"Six feet in earth my Emma lay;
And yet I loved her more,

For so it seemed, than till that day

I e'er had loved before.

"And turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the church-yard yew,

A blooming girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.

"A basket on her head she bare; Her brow was smooth and white: To see a child so very fair,

It was a pure delight!

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS.

1799.-1800.

WE walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;

And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said,
"The will of God be done!"

A day like this which I have left

Full thirty years behind.

"And just above yon slope of corn

Such colors, and no other,

Were in the sky that April morn,

Of this the very brother.

"With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

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And, to the church-yard come, stopped short

That he below may rest in peace,
Thy ever-dwindling soul away!

A Moralist perchance appears;

Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:
And he has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God;

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;

Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.

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In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart, —
The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak; both man and boy,

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Hath been an idler in the land;

Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.

-Come hither in thy hour of strength;
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length;
Or build thy house upon this grave!

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