There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain ; Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds, And attention full ten times as much as there needs; Pride where there 's no envy, there's so much of joy; And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy. There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare This picture from nature may seem to depart, heart; And I for five centuries right gladly would be Such an odd, such a kind, happy creature as he. 1800. V. TO MY SISTER. It is the first mild day of March: The redbreast sings from the tall larch There is a blessing in the air, Which seems a sense of joy to yield My sister! (t is a wish of mine,) Edward will come with you; — and, pray, Put on with speed your woodland dress; And bring no book: for this one day We'll give to idleness. No joyless forms shall regulate Our living calendar: We from to-day, my Friend, will date The opening of the year. Love, now a universal birth, From heart to heart is stealing, From earth to man, from man to earth: One moment now may give us more Our minds shall drink at every pore The spirit of the season. Some silent laws our hearts will make, Which they shall long obey: We for the year to come may take Our temper from to-day. And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above, We'll frame the measure of our souls: They shall be tuned to love. Then come, my Sister! come, I pray, With speed put on your woodland dress; And bring no book: for this one day VI. SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN: 1798. WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED. In the sweet shire of Cardigan, Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall, An old Man dwells, a little man, "T is said he once was tall. Full five-and-thirty years he lived A running huntsman merry; No man like him the horn could sound, In those proud days, he little cared For husbandry or tillage; To blither tasks did Simon rouse The sleepers of the village. He all the country could outrun, Could leave both man and horse behind; And often, ere the chase was done, He reeled, and was stone-blind. And still there's something in the world At which his heart rejoices; For when the chiming hounds are out, But O the heavy change! bereft Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see! Old Simon to the world is left In liveried poverty. His Master's dead, and no one now Dwells in the Hall of Ivor; Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead, And he is lean and he is sick; Rests upon ankles swoln and thick; One prop he has, and only one : His wife, an aged woman, Lives with him, near the waterfall, Beside their moss-grown hut of clay, This scrap of land he from the heath Oft, working by her Husband's side, And, though you with your utmost skill "T is little, very little, all That they can do between them. Few months of life has he in store, As he to you will tell, For still, the more he works, the more Do his weak ankles swell. |