"But they are dead; those two are dead! 1798. VII. ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS. I HAVE a boy of five years old; One morn we strolled on our dry walk, And held such intermitted talk My thoughts on former pleasures ran ; A day it was when I could bear The green earth echoed to the feet Of lambs that bounded through the glade, From shade to sunshine, and as fleet Birds warbled round me—and each trace My boy beside me tripped, so slim "Now, tell me, had you rather be," 66 I said, and took him by the arm, On Kilve's smooth shore, by the green sea Or here at Liswyn farm ? "For here are woods, hills smooth and warm; There surely must some reason be Why you would change sweet Liswyn farm At this my boy hung down his head, He blushed with shame, nor made reply; And three times to the child I said, His head he raised-there was in sight, Then did the boy his tongue unlock; O dearest, dearest boy! my heart For better lore would seldom yearn, Could I but teach the hundredth part Of what from thee I learn. VIII. LUCY GRAY; OR, SOLITUDE. OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray: No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew; -The sweetest thing that ever grew You yet may spy the fawn at play "To-night will be a stormy night— "That, father! will I gladly do: 'Tis scarcely afternoon The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon." At this the father raised his hook Not blither is the mountain roe: The storm came on before its time: But never reached the town. The wretched parents all that night, At day-break on a hill they stood And thence they saw the bridge of wood, They wept-and turning homeward, cried, Then downwards from the steep hill's edge And then an open field they crossed: They followed from the snowy bank -Yet some maintain that to this day That you may see sweet Lucy Gray O'er rough and smooth she trips along And never looks behind; And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind. IX. THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS. WE walked along, while bright and red, And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said, 1799. A village schoolmaster was he, 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, Upon the eastern mountain-top, "Yon cloud with that long purple cleft A day like this, which I have left “And just above yon slope of corn "With rod and line I sued the sport Which that sweet season gave, And, to the church-yard come, stopped short Beside my daughter's grave. Nine summers had she scarcely seen, The pride of all the vale; And then she sang: she would have been A very nightingale. "Six feet in earth my Emma lay ; And yet I loved her more, For so it seemed, than till that day "And, turning from her grave, I met, A blooming girl, whose hair was wet |