"UP, Timothy, up with your staff and away!
Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;
The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,
And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds."
-Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green,
On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen;
With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow,
The girls on the hills made a holiday show.
Fresh springs of green box-wood, not six months before,
Filled the funeral basin* at Timothy's door;
A coffin through Timothy's threshold had past;
One Child did it bear, and that Child was his last.
* In several parts of the North of England when a funeral takes place, a basin full of sprigs of box-wood is placed at the door of the house from which the coffin is taken up, and each person who attends the funeral ordinarily takes a sprig of this box-wood, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.
Now fast
up the dell came the noise and the fray,
The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark away!
Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut
With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.
Perhaps to himself at that moment he said;
"The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead.' But of this in my ears not a word did he speak ; And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.
ONCE in a lonely hamlet I sojourned
In which a Lady driven from France did dwell;
The big and lesser griefs with which she mourned,
In friendship she to me would often tell.
This Lady, dwelling upon English ground,
Where she was childless, daily would repair
To a poor neighbouring cottage; as I found,
For sake of a young Child whose home was there.
Once having seen her take with fond embrace,
This Infant to herself, I framed a lay,
Endeavouring, in my native tongue, to trace
Such things as she unto the Child might say:
And thus, from what I knew, had heard, and guessed,
My song the workings of her heart expressed.
"Dear Babe, thou daughter of another,
One moment let me be thy mother!
An infant's face and looks are thine;
And sure a mother's heart is mine:
Thy own dear mother 's far away,
At labour in the harvest field:
Thy little sister is at play ;
What warmth, what comfort would it yield
To my poor heart, if thou would'st be
One little hour a child to me!
Across the waters I am come,
And I have left a babe at home:
A long, long way of land and sea!
Come to me— -I'm no enemy:
I am the same who at thy side
Sate yesterday, and made a nest
For thee, sweet Baby!-thou hast tried.
Thou know'st the pillow of my breast;
Good, good art thou :-alas! to me
Far more than I can be to thee.
Here, little Darling, dost thou lie;
An infant thou, a mother I!
Mine wilt thou be, thou hast no fears;
Mine art thou-spite of these my tears.
Alas! before I left the spot,
My baby and its dwelling-place;
The nurse said to me, 'Tears should not
Be shed upon an infant's face,
It was unlucky’—no, no, no;
No truth is in them who say so!
My own dear Little-one will sigh,
Sweet Babe! and they will let him die.
'He pines,' they 'll say, 'it is his doom,
you may see his hour is come.'
Oh! had he but thy cheerful smiles,
Limbs stout as thine, and lips as gay,
Thy looks, thy cunning, and thy wiles,
And countenance like a summer's day,
They would have hopes of him ;-and then
I should behold his face again!
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