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At break of day I ventured forth,
And near the cliff I passed.

The storm had fallen upon the Oak,
And struck him with a mighty stroke,

And whirled, and whirled him far away ;
And, in one hospitable cleft,

The little careless Broom was left

To live for many a day."

VI.

1800

TO A SEXTON.

LET thy wheelbarrow alone!
Wherefore, Sexton, piling still
In thy bone-house bone on bone?
'Tis already like a hill

In a field of battle made,

Where three thousand skulls are laid d;

These died in peace each with the other, Father, sister, friend, and brother.

Mark the spot to which I point!
From this platform, eight feet square,

Take not even a finger-joint:

Andrew's whole fireside is there.
Here, alone, before thine eyes,

Simon's sickly daughter lies,

From weakness now and pain defended,
Whom he twenty winters tended.

Look but at the gardener's pride, -
How he glories, when he sees
Roses, lilies, side by side,
Violets in families!

By the heart of Man, his tears,
By his hopes and by his fears,
Thou, too heedless, art the Warden
Of a far superior garden.

Thus then, each to other dear,

Let them all in quiet lie,

Andrew there, and Susan here,

Neighbors in mortality.

And should I live through sun and rain,
Seven widowed years without my Jane,
O Sexton, do not then remove her,
Let one grave hold the Loved and Lover!

VII.

TO THE DAISY.

"Her divine skill taught me this,
That from everything I saw

I could some instruction draw,
And raise pleasure to the height
Through the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustelling;
By a Daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;
She could more infuse in me,
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man."

G. WITHER

IN youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill, in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,-
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake,
Of thee, sweet Daisy !

Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few gray hairs;

* His Muse.

Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;

Whole Summer-fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane:
Pleased at his greeting thee again;
Yet nothing daunted,

Nor grieved, if thou be set at naught:
And oft alone in nooks remote

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.

Be violets in their sacred mews

The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
Proud be the rose, with rains and dews
Her head impearling;

Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,

VOL. II.

And wearily at length should fare;

He needs but look about, and there

Thou art! a friend at hand, to scare

His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;

Some steady love; some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;
Some chime of fancy wrong or right;
Or stray invention.

If stately passions in me burn,

And one chance look to thee should turn,

I drink out of an humbler urn

A lowlier pleasure;

The homely sympathy that heeds

The common life, our nature breeds ;

A wisdom fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure.

Fresh-smitten by the morning ray,
When thou art up, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play

With kindred gladness:

And when, at dusk, by dews opprest

Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest

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