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A basket on her head she bare;
Her brow was smooth and white:
To see a child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!

No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripped with foot so free;
She seemed as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine ;

I looked at her, and looked again:
And did not wish her mine!"

Matthew is in his grave, yet now,
Methinks, I see him stand,
As at that moment, with a bough
Of wilding in his hand.

XII.

THE FOUNTAIN.

A CONVERSATION.

We talked with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,

A pair of friends, though I was young,

And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,

Beside a mossy seat;

And from the turf a fountain broke,

And gurgled at our feet.

1799.

"Now, Matthew!" said I, "let us match This water's pleasant tune

With some old border-song, or catch
That suits a summer's noon;

Or of the church-clock and the chimes
Sing here beneath the shade,

That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made!"

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed

The spring beneath the tree;

And thus the dear old Man replied,

The grey-haired man of glee :

"No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears;

How merrily it goes!

'Twill murmur on a thousand years,

And flow as now it flows.

And here, on this delightful day,

I cannot choose but think

How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.

My eyes are dim with childish tears,

My heart is idly stirred,

For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.

Thus fares it still in our decay:
And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what age takes
Than what it leaves behind.

away

The blackbird amid leafy trees,

The lark above the hill,

Let loose their carols when they please, Are quiet when they will.

With Nature never do they wage

A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age

Is beautiful and free:

But we are pressed by heavy laws;
And often, glad no more,
We wear a face of joy, because
We have been glad of yore.

If there be one who need bemoan

His kindred laid in earth,

The household hearts that were his own;

It is the man of mirth.

My days, my Friend, are almost gone,

My life has been approved,

And many love me e; but by none

Am I enough beloved."

"Now both himself and me he wrongs,

The man who thus complains

I live and sing my idle songs

Upon these happy plains;

And, Matthew, for thy children dead

I'll be a son to thee!"

At this he grasped my hand, and said, "Alas! that cannot be."

We rose up from the fountain-side;
And down the smooth descent
Of the green sheep-track did we glide;
And through the wood we went;

And, ere we came to Leonard's rock,
He sang those witty rhymes

About the crazy old church-clock,
And the bewildered chimes.

1799.

XIII.

PERSONAL TALK.

[WRITTEN at Town-end, Grasmere. The last line but two stood, at first, better and more characteristically, thus:

"By my half-kitchen and half-parlour fire."

My Sister and I were in the habit of having the tea-kettle in our little sitting-room; and we toasted the bread ourselves, which reminds me of a little circumstance not unworthy of being set down among these minutia. Happening both of us to be engaged a few minutes one morning when we had a young prig of a Scotch lawyer to breakfast with us, my dear Sister, with her usual simplicity, put the toasting-fork with a slice of bread into the hands of this Edinburgh genius. Our little book-case stood on one side of the fire. To prevent loss of time, he took down a book, and fell to reading, to the neglect of the toast, which was burnt to a cinder. Many a time bave we laughed at this circumstance, and other cottage simplicities of that day. By the bye, I have a spite at one of this series of Sonnets (I will leave the reader to discover which) as having been the means of nearly putting off for ever our acquaintance with dear Miss Fenwick, who has always stigmatised one line of it as vulgar, and worthy only of having been composed by a country squire.]

I.

I AM not One who much or oft delight

To season my fireside with personal talk.—
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,

Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:

And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,
Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,
These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk
Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night.
Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.

II.

"Yet life," you say, "is life; we have seen and see, And with a living pleasure we describe;

And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe

The languid mind into activity.

Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee
Are fostered by the comment and the gibe."
Even be it so; yet still among your tribe,
Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank not me!
Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies
More justly balanced; partly at their feet,
And part far from them: sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet;
Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes,
He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet!

III.

Wings have we,-and as far as we can go,
We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.

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