When thou return'st, thou in this place wilt see And bear thy memory with me to the grave." The Shepherd ended here; and Luke stooped down, And, as his Father had requested, laid The first stone of the Sheepfold. At the sight - Hushed was that house in peace, or seeming peace, Ere the night fell:- with morrow's dawn the Boy And all the neighbors, as he passed their doors, A good report did from their Kinsman come, Of Luke and his well-doing: and the Boy Wrote loving letters, full of wondrous news, Which, as the Housewife phrased it, were through out "The prettiest letters that were ever seen." Both parents read them with rejoicing hearts. So, many months passed on: and once again The Shepherd went about his daily work There is a comfort in the strength of love; 'T will make a thing endurable, which else Would overset the brain, or break the heart : I have conversed with more than one who well Remember the old Man, and what he was Years after he had heard this heavy news. His bodily frame had been from youth to age Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks He went, and still looked up to sun and cloud, And listened to the wind; and, as before, Performed all kinds of labor for his sheep, And for the land, his small inheritance. And to that hollow dell from time to time Did he repair, to build the Fold of which His flock had need. "T is not forgotten yet The pity which was then in every heart For the old Man, and 't is believed by all, That many and many a day he thither went, There, by the Sheepfold, sometimes was he seen Sitting alone, or with his faithful dog, Then old, beside him, lying at his feet. The length of full seven years, from time to time, The Cottage which was named the EVENING STAR ground On which it stood; great changes have been wrought 1800. XXXIII. THE WIDOW ON WINDERMERE SIDE. I. How beautiful when up a lofty height Honor ascends among the humblest poor, And feeling sinks as deep! See there the door Of one, a Widow, left beneath a weight Of blameless debt. On evil Fortune's spite She wasted no complaint, but strove to make II. The Mother mourned, nor ceased her tears to flow But why that prayer? as if to her could come Since reason failed, want is her threatened doom, The air or laugh upon a precipice; No, passing through strange sufferings toward the tomb, She smiles as if a martyr's crown were won: Oft, when light breaks through clouds or waving trees, With outspread arms, and fallen upon her knees, An Angel, and in earthly ecstasies XXXIV THE ARMENIAN LADY'S LOVE [The subject of the following poem is from the Orlandus of the author's friend, Kenelm Henry Digby: and the liberty is taken of inscribing it to him as an acknowledgment, how ever unworthy, of pleasure and instruction derived from his numerous and valuable writings, illustrative of the piety and chivalry of the olden time.] You have heard " a Spanish Lady How she wooed an Englishman": *See, in Percy's Reliques, that fine old ballad," The Spanish Lady's Love"; from which poem the form of stanza, as suitable to dialogue, is adopted. |