Duty, like a strict preceptor,

Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown;
Choose her thistle for thy sceptre,
While youth's roses are thy crown.

Grasp it,-if thou shrink and tremble,
Fairest damsel of the green,

Thou wilt lack the only symbol
That proclaims a genuine queen ;

And ensures those palms of honour
Which selected spirits wear,
Bending low before the Donor,
Lord of heaven's unchanging year!

1817.

XVIII.

THE NORMAN BOY.

[THE subject of this poem was sent me by Mrs. Ogle, to whom I was personally unknown, with a hope on her part that I might be induced to relate the incident in verse; and I do not regret that I took the trouble, for not improbably the fact is illustrative of the boy's early piety, and may concur with my other little pieces on children to produce profitable reflection among my youthful readers. This is said however with an absolute conviction that children will derive most benefit from books which are not unworthy the perusal of persons of any age. I protest with my whole heart against those productions, so abundant in the present day, in which the doings of children are dwelt upon as if they were incapable of being interested in anything else. On this subject I have dwelt at length in the poem on the growth of my own mind.]

HIGH on a broad unfertile tract of forest-skirted Down, Nor kept by Nature for herself, nor made by man

his own,

From home and company remote and every playful joy, Served, tending a few sheep and goats, a ragged Norman Boy.

Him never saw I, nor the spot; but from an English Dame,

Stranger to me and yet my friend, a simple notice came, With suit that I would speak in verse of that sequestered child

Whom, one bleak winter's day, she met upon the dreary Wild.

His flock, along the woodland's edge with relics sprinkled o'er

Of last night's snow, beneath a sky threatening the fall of more,

Where tufts of herbage tempted each, were busy at their feed,

And the poor Boy was busier still, with work of anxious heed.

There was he, where of branches rent and withered and decayed,

For covert from the keen north wind, his hands a hut had made.

A tiny tenement, forsooth, and frail, as needs must be A thing of such materials framed, by a builder such as he.

The hut stood finished by his pains, nor seemingly lacked aught

That skill or means of his could add, but the architect had wrought

Some limber twigs into a Cross, well-shaped with fingers nice,

To be engrafted on the top of his small edifice.

That Cross he now was fastening there, as the surest power and best

For supplying all deficiencies, all wants of the rude

nest

In which, from burning heat, or tempest driving far and wide,

The innocent Boy, else shelterless, his lonely head must hide.

That Cross belike he also raised as a standard for

the true

And faithful service of his heart in the worst that might ensue

Of hardship and distressful fear, amid the houseless

waste

Where he, in his poor self so weak, by Providence was placed.

-Here, Lady! might I cease; but nay, let us before we part

With this dear holy shepherd-boy breathe a prayer of earnest heart,

That unto him, where'er shall lie his life's appointed

way,

The Cross, fixed in his soul, may prove an allsufficing stay.

XIX.

THE POET'S DREAM,

SEQUEL TO THE NORMAN BOY.

JUST as those final words were penned, the sun broke out in power,

And gladdened all things; but, as chanced, within that very hour,

Air blackened, thunder growled, fire flashed from clouds that hid the sky,

And, for the Subject of my Verse, I heaved a pensive sigh.

Nor could my heart by second thoughts from heaviness be cleared,

For bodied forth before my eyes the cross-crowned hut appeared;

And, while around it storm as fierce seemed troubling earth and air,

I saw, within, the Norman Boy kneeling alone in

prayer.

The Child, as if the thunder's voice spake with articulate call,

Bowed meekly in submissive fear, before the Lord

of All;

His lips were moving; and his eyes, upraised to sue for grace,

With soft illumination cheered the dimness of that

place.

How beautiful is holiness!—what wonder if the sight, Almost as vivid as a dream, produced a dream at night? It came with sleep and showed the Boy, no cherub, not transformed,

But the poor raggèd Thing whose ways my human heart had warmed.

Me had the dream equipped with wings, so I took him in my arms,

And lifted from the grassy floor, stilling his faint alarms,

And bore him high through yielding air my debt of love to pay,

By giving him, for both our sakes, an hour of holiday.

I whispered, "Yet a little while, dear Child! thou art my own,

To show thee some delightful thing, in country or in town.

What shall it be? a mirthful throng? or that holy place and calm

St. Denis, filled with royal tombs, or the Church of Notre Dame ?

"St. Ouen's golden Shrine? Or choose what else would please thee most

Of any wonder Normandy, or all proud France, can boast!"

"My Mother," said the Boy, "was born near to a blessèd Tree,

The Chapel Oak of Allonville; good Angel, show it me!"

VOL. I.