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We from to-day, my friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now an universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth:

-It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than fifty years of reason:

Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts may make,
Which they shall long obey:

We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls

About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls:

They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my Sister! come,

pray,

With speed put on your woodland dress;
-And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

TO A YOUNG LADY,

WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY.

DEAR child of Nature, let them rail!
-There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold,

Where thou, a wife and friend, shalt see

Thy own delightful days, and be

A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd-boy,

As if thy heritage were joy,

And pleasure were thy trade,

Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,

Shalt show us how divine a thing

A woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,

Nor leave thee when gray hairs are nigh

A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,

And lovely as a Lapland night,

Shall lead thee to thy grave.

LINES,

WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played
Their thoughts I cannot measure:-
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If I these thoughts may not prevent,
If such be of my creed the plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN.

WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED.

IN the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall,
An old man dwells, a little man,
I've heard he once was tall.
Full five-and-twenty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And though he has but one eye left,
His cheek is like a cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,

And no man was so full of glee;

To say the least, four counties round

Had heard of Simon Lee;

His master's dead, and no one now
Dwells in the Hall of Ivor;

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;

He is the sole survivor.

His hunting feats have him bereft,

Of his right eye, as you may see;

And then, what limbs those feats have left,
To poor old Simon Lee!

When he was young he little knew

Of husbandry or tillage;

And now is forced to work, though weak,
-The weakest in the village.

He all the country could outrun,

Could leave both man and horse behind;
And often, ere the race was done,

He reeled and was stone-blind.

And still there's something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;

For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices!

But he is lean and he is sick,

His dwindled body half awry,

His ankles too are swoln and thick;

His legs are thin and dry.

He has no son, he has no child,

His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,

Upon the village common.

Old Ruth works out of doors with him,

And does what Simon cannot do;

For she, not over stout of limb,

Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,

Alas! 'tis very little, all

Which they can do between them.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.

This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what avails the land to them,
Which they can till no longer?

Few months of life has he in store,

As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.

My gentle reader, I perceive
How patiently you've waited,

And I'm afraid that you expect
Some tale will be related.

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O reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle reader! you would find
A tale in every thing,

What more I have to say is short,
I hope you'll kindly take it:
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This old man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour

That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool," to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor old man so long
And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,

And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought

They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds

With coldness still returning,

Alas! the gratitude of men
Has oftner left me mourning.

In the school of

is a tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the names of the several persons who have been schoolmasters there since the foundation of the school, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite one of those names the Author wrote the following lines.

IF Nature, for a favourite child

In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray.

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears

In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.

-When through this little wreck of fame,
Cypher and syllable! thine eye

Has travelled down to Matthew's name,
Pause with no common sympathy.

And, if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed:
For Matthew a request I make
Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,

Is silent as a standing pool;

Far from the chimney's merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.

The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
Were tears of light, the dew of gladness.

Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up-
He felt with spirit so profound.

-Thou soul of God's best earthly mould!
Thou happy soul! and can it be
That these two words of glittering gold
Are all that must remain of thee?

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS.

WE walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;

And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said,
"The will of God be done!"

A village schoolmaster was he,

With hair of glittering gray;

As blithe a man as you could see

On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,

And by the streaming rills,

We travelled merrily, to pass

A day among the hills.

"Our work," said I, "was well begun ;

Then, from thy breast what thought,

Beneath so beautiful a sun,

So sad a sigh has brought?"

A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:

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