With staff in hand across the cleft When list! he hears a piteous moan- And, looking down, espies A lamb, that in the pool is pent The lamb had slipped into the stream, His dam had seen him when he fell, And, while with all a mother's love She from the lofty rocks above Sent forth a cry forlorn, The lamb, still swimming round and round, Made answer to that plaintive sound. When he had learnt what thing it was, He drew it from the troubled pool, Into their arms the lamb they took, Whose life and limbs the flood had spared; Then up the steep ascent they hied, And placed him at his mother's side; And gently did the Bard Those idle Shepherd-boys upbraid, And bade them better mind their trade. 1800. XIV. TO H. C. SIX YEARS OLD. O THOU ! whose fancies from afar are brought; The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; In such clear water, that thy boat May rather seem To brood on air than on an earthly stream; Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; O blessed vision! happy child! That art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years. I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality; And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest But when she sate within the touch of thee. O too industrious folly! O vain and causeless melancholy! Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks, Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife 1802. XV. INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. [This extract is reprinted from "THE FRIEND."] WISDOM and Spirit of the universe! By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn |