To see the end of all my gains,

The pretty flock which I had reared
With all my care and pains,

To see it melt like snow away,

For me it was a woful day.

VII.

"Another still! and still another!
A little lamb, and then its mother!
It was a vein that never stopped,-
Like blood-drops from my heart they dropped
Till thirty were not left alive,

They dwindled, dwindled, one by one;

And I may say, that many a time

I wished that all were gone,

Reckless of what might come at lası
Were but the bitter struggle past.

VIII.

"To wicked deeds I was inclined,

mind;

And wicked fancies crossed my
And every man I chanced to see,
I thought he knew some ill of me:
No peace, no comfort, could I find,
No ease, within doors or without;
And crazily and wearily

I went my work about;

And oft was moved to flee from home,

And hide my head where wild beasts roam,

IX.

"Sir! 't was a precious flock to me,
As dear as my own children be;
For daily with my growing store
I loved my children more and more.
Alas! it was an evil time;

God cursed me in my sore distress;
I prayed, yet every day I thought
I loved my children less;

And every week, and every day,
My flock it seemed to melt away.

X.

"They dwindled, Sir, sad sight to see! From ten to five, from five to three,

A lamb, a wether, and a ewe;

And then at last from three to two:
And, of my fifty, yesterday

I had but only one:

And here it lies upon my arn,

Alas! and I have none;

--

To-day I fetched it from the rock :
It is the last of all my flock."

XXIII.

REPENTANCE.

A PASTORAL BALLAD.

THE fields which with covetous spirit we sold, Those beautiful fields, the delight of the day, Would have brought us more good than a burden of gold,

Could we but have been as contented as they.

When the troublesome Tempter beset us, said I, "Let him come, with his purse proudly grasped in his hand';

But, Allan, be true to me, Allan,

we 'll die Before he shall go with an inch of the land!"

There dwelt we, as happy as birds in their bowers, Unfettered as bees that in gardens abide;

We could do what we liked with the land, it was

ours,

And for us the brook murmured that ran by its side.

But now we are strangers, go early or late;
And often, like one overburdened with sin,
With my hand on the latch of the half-opened gate,
I look at the fields, but I cannot go in !

When I walk by the hedge on a bright summer's

day,

Or sit in the shade of my grandfather's tree,

A stern face it puts on, as if ready to say,

"What ails you, that you must come creeping to me!"

With our pastures about us, we could not be sad Our comfort was near if we ever were crost; But the comfort, the blessings, and wealth that w

had,

We slighted them all, and our birthright was lost.

O ill-judging sire of an innocent son,

Who must now be a wanderer! but peace to that strain!

Think of evening's repose when our labor was done,

The Sabbath's return; and its leisure's soft chain !

And in sickness, if night had been sparing of sleep, How cheerful, at sunrise, the hill where I stood, Looking down on the kine, and our treasure of sheep

That besprinkled the field; 't was like youth in my blood!

Now I cleave to the house, and am dull as a snail; And, oftentimes, hear the church-bell with a sigh,

That follows the thought, We've no land in the

vale,

Save six feet of earth where our forefathers lie!

XXIV.

THE AFFLICTION OF MARGARET

1804.

I.

WHERE art thou, my beloved Son,
Where art thou, worse to me than dead?
O find me, prosperous or undone !
Or, if the grave be now thy bed,
Why am I ignorant of the same,
That I may rest, and neither blame
Nor sorrow may attend thy name?

II.

Seven years, alas! to have received
No tidings of an only child;

To have despaired, have hoped, believed,
And been for evermore beguiled;
Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!

I catch at them, and then I miss ;
Was ever darkness like to this?

III.

He was among the prime in worth,

An object beauteous to behold;