III.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY,

ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY.

The Reader must be apprised, that the Stoves in North Germany generally have the impression of a galloping Horse upon them, this being part of the Brunswick Arms.

A PLAGUE on your languages, German and Norse!
Let me have the song of the Kettle;

And the tongs and the poker, instead of that Horse
That gallops away with such fury and force
On his dreary dull plate of black metal.

See that Fly, - a disconsolate creature! perhaps A child of the field or the grove;

And, sorrow for him! the dull treacherous heat Has seduced the poor fool from his winter retreat,

And he creeps to the edge of my stove.

Alas! how he fumbles about the domains

Which this comfortless oven environ !

He cannot find out in what track he must crawl,
Now back to the tiles, and now back to the wall,
And now on the brink of the iron.

Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemazed; The best of his skill he has tried;

His feelers, methinks, I can see him put forth

To the East and the West, to the South and the North; But he finds neither Guide-post nor Guide.

How his spindles sink under him, foot, leg, and thigh;
His eyesight and hearing are lost;

Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws;
And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze
Are glued to his sides by the frost.

No Brother, no Mate has he near him - while I
Can draw warmth from the cheek of my Love;
As blest and as glad in this desolate gloom,

As if

green summer grass were the floor of my room, And woodbines were hanging above.

Yet, God is my witness, thou small helpless Thing! Thy life I would gladly sustain

Till summer comes up from the South, and with crowds Of thy brethrenamarch thou should'st sound through the clouds,

And back to the forests again!

IV.

LINES.

Left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree, which stands near the Lake of

Esthwaite, on a desolate Part of the Shore, commanding a beautiful Prospect.

NAY, Traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb?
What if these barren boughs the bee not loves?
Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.

Who he was

That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod
First covered o'er, and taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower,

I well remember.

He was one who owned

No common soul. In youth by science nursed,

And led by nature into a wild scene

Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth

A favoured Being, knowing no desire

Which Genius did not hallow, - 'gainst the taint

Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate,

And scorn, against all enemies prepared,

All but neglect. The world, for so it thought,
Owed him no service: wherefore he at once
With indignation turned himself away,

And with the food of pride sustained his soul
In solitude. Stranger! these gloomy boughs
Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,
His only visitants a straggling sheep,

The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper:
And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath,
And juniper and thistle, sprinkled o'er,
Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour
A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
An emblem of his own unfruitful life:

And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze
On the more distant scene, - how lovely 'tis
Thou seest, - and he would gaze till it became

Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain

The beauty, still more beauteous! Nor, that time, When nature had subdued him to herself,

Would he forget those beings, to whose minds,

Warm from the labours of benevolence,

The world, and human life, appeared a scene