My gentle Reader, I perceive
How patiently you've waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything.

What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:

It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This old Man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,

A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock tottered in his hand;

So vain was his endeavor,

That at the root of the old tree

He might have worked for ever.

"You 're overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool," to him I said;
And at the word, right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor old Man so long
And vainly had endeavored.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.

- I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men

Hath oftener left me mourning.

1798.

VII.

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 this dreary dull plate of black metal.

See that Fly, a disconsolate creature! perhaps

A child of the field or the grove;

And, sorry 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, then in search of 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.

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

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 come up from the south, and, with crowds

Of thy brethren, a march thou shouldst sound through the clouds,

And back to the forests again!

VIII.

A POET'S EPITAPH.

ART thou a Statist, in the van
Of public conflicts trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man;
Then mayst thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou? - draw not nigh!
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?
A rosy Man, right plump to see?
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near,
This grave no cushion is for thee.

1799.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,
A Soldier and no man of chaff?
Welcome! - but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.

Physician art thou? one all eyes,
Philosopher!a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside, and take, I pray,

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.