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 :

-It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than years of toiling reason:

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

We'll give to idleness.

VI.

SIMON LEE,

THE OLD HUNTSMAN;

WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED.

[THIS old man had been huntsman to the squires of Alfoxden, which, at the time we occupied it, belonged to a minor. The old man's cottage stood upon the common, a little way from the entrance to Alfoxden Park. But it had disappeared. Many other changes had taken place in the adjoining village, which I could not but notice with a regret more natural than well-considered. Improvements but rarely appear such to those who, after long intervals of time, revisit places they have had much pleasure in. It is unnecessary to add, the fact was as mentioned in the poem; and I have, after an interval of forty-five years, the image of the old man as fresh before my eyes as if I had seen him yesterday. The expression when the hounds were out, "I dearly love their voice," was word for word from his own lips.]

In the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old Man dwells, a little man,-
'Tis said he once was tall.

Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When Echo bandied, round and round,
The halloo of Simon Lee.

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,
He dearly loves their voices!

But, oh 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;
He is the sole survivor.

And he is lean and he is sick;

His body, dwindled and awry,
Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;

His legs are thin and dry.

One prop he has, and only one,

His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village Common.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.
This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer?

Oft, working by her Husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
'Tis 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.

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 every thing.

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 endeavour,
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 endeavoured.

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.