Fair scenes, erewhile, I taught, a happy child,
The echoes of your rocks my carols wild:
The spirit sought not then, in cherished sadness,
A cloudy substitute for failing gladness.

In youth's keen eye the livelong day was bright,
The sun at morning, and the stars at night,
Alike, when first the bittern's hollow bill

Was heard, or woodcocks* roamed the moonlight hill.

In thoughtless gayety I coursed the plain, And hope itself was all I knew of pain; For then, the inexperienced heart would beat At times, while young Content forsook her seat, And wild Impatience, pointing upward, showed, Through passes yet unreached, a brighter road. Alas! the idle tale of man is found Depicted in the dial's moral round; Hope with reflection blends her social rays To gild the total tablet of his days; Yet still, the sport of some malignant power, He knows but from its shade the present hour.

But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain? To show what pleasures yet to me remain, Say, will my Friend, with unreluctant ear, The history of a poet's evening hear?

In the beginning of winter, these mountains are frequent ad by woodcocks, which in dark nights retire into the woods.

When, in the south, the wan noon, brooding still, Breathed a pale steam around the glaring hill, And shades of deep-embattled clouds were seen, Spotting the northern cliffs with lights between; When crowding cattle, checked by rails that make A fence far stretched into the shallow lake, Lashed the cool water with their restless tails, Or from high points of rock looked out for fanning

gales:

When schoolboys stretched their length upon the green;

And round the broad-spread oak, a glimmering

scene,

In the rough fern-clad park, the herded deer
Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear;
When horses in the sunburnt intake* stood,
And vainly eyed below the tempting flood,
Or tracked the passenger, in mute distress,
With forward neck the closing gate to press
Then, while I wandered where the huddling rill
Brightens with water-breaks the hollow ghyll†
As by enchantment, an obscure retreat
Opened at once, and stayed my devious feet.
While thick above the rill the branches close,
In rocky basin its wild waves repose,
Inverted shrubs, and moss of gloomy green,

*The word intake is local, and signifies a mountain inclosure.

Ghyll is also, I believe, a term confined to this country: ghyll, and dingle, have the same meaning.

Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds be

tween ;

And its own twilight softens the whole scene,
Save where aloft the subtle sunbeams shine
On withered briers that o'er the crags recline;
Save where, with sparkling foam, a small cascade
Illumines, from within, the leafy shade;
Beyond, along the vista of the brook,

Where antique roots its bustling course o'erlook,
The eye reposes on a secret bridge,*

Half gray, half shagged with ivy to its ridge; There, bending o'er the stream, the listless swain Lingers behind his disappearing wain.

- Did Sabine grace adorn my living line, Blandusia's praise, wild stream, should yield to

thine!

Never shall ruthless minister of death

'Mid thy soft glooms the glittering steel unsheath ;
No goblets shall, for thee, be crowned with flowers,
No kid with piteous outcry thrill thy bowers;
The mystic shapes that by thy margin rove
A more benignant sacrifice approve,
A mind, that, in a calm, angelic mood
Of happy wisdom, meditating good,

Beholds, of all from her high powers required,
Much done, and much designed, and more desired,--

The reader who has made the tour of this country will recognize, in this description, the features which characterize the low waterfall in the grounds of Rydal.

Harmonious thoughts, a soul by truth refined,
Entire affection for all human kind.

Dear Brook, farewell! To-morrow's noon again Shall hide me, wooing long thy wild-wood strain; But now the sun has gained his western road, And eve's mild hour invites my steps abroad.

While, near the midway cliff, the silvered kite In many a whistling circle wheels her flight; Slant watery lights, from parting clouds, apace Travel along the precipice's base;

Cheering its naked waste of scattered stone,
By lichens gray, and scanty moss, o'ergrown;
Where scarce the foxglove peeps, or thistle's beard,
And restless stone-chat, all day long, is heard.

How pleasant, as the sun declines, to view The spacious landscape change in form and hue! Here, vanish, as in mist, before a flood Of bright obscurity, hill, lawn, and wood; There, objects, by the searching beams betrayed, Come forth, and here retire in purple shade; Even the white stems of birch, the cottage white, Soften their glare before the mellow light; The skiffs, at anchor where with umbrage wide Yon chestnuts half the latticed boat-house hide, Shed from their sides, that face the sun's slant beam, Strong flakes of radiance on the tremulous stream; Raised by yon travelling flock, a dusty cloud

Mounts from the road, and spreads its moving

shroud;

The shepherd, all involved in wreaths of fire, Now shows a shadowy speck, and now is lost entire

Into a gradual calm the breezes sink, A blue rim borders all the lake's still brink; There doth the twinkling aspen's foliage sleep, And insects clothe, like dust, the glassy deep: And now, on every side, the surface breaks Into blue spots, and slowly lengthening streaks; Here, plots of sparkling water tremble bright With thousand thousand twinkling points of light; There, waves that, hardly weltering, die away, Tip their smooth ridges with a softer ray; And now the whole wide lake in deep repose Is hushed, and like a burnished mirror glows, Save where, along the shady western marge, Coasts, with industrious oar, the charcoal barge.

Their panniered train a group of potters goad, Winding from side to side up the steep road; The peasant, from yon cliff of fearful edge Shot, down the headlong path darts with his sledge; Bright beams the lonely mountain-horse illume, Feeding 'mid purple heath, "green rings," and broom;

While the sharp slope the slackened team confounds,

"Vivid rings of green."-GREENWOOD's Poem on Shooting