"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"
'Twas throwing words away: for still
The little maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

1798.

VII.

ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS.

I HAVE a boy of five years old;
His face is fair and fresh to see:
His limbs are cast in beauty's mould,
And dearly he loves me.

One morn we strolled on our dry walk,
Our quiet home all full in view,

And held such intermitted talk
As we are wont to do.

My thoughts on former pleasures ran ;
I thought of Kilve's delightful shore,
Our pleasant home when spring began,
A long, long year before.

A day it was when I could bear
Some fond regrets to entertain
With so much happiness to spare,
I could not feel a pain.

The green earth echoed to the feet

Of lambs that bounded through the glade,

From shade to sunshine, and as fleet
From sunshine back to shade.

Birds warbled round me—and each trace
Of inward sadness had its charm;
Kilve, thought I, was a favoured place,
And so is Liswyn farm.

My boy beside me tripped, so slim
And graceful in his rustic dress!
And as we talked, I questioned him
In very idleness.

"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
For Kilve by the green sea."

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,
It caught his eye, he saw it plain,—
Upon the house-top, glittering bright,
A broad and gilded vane.

Then did the boy his tongue unlock;
And thus to me he made reply:
At Kilve there was no weathercock;
And that's the reason why."

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:
And when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,

-The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night—
You to the town must go;
And take a lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow."

"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
And snapped a faggot band;
He plied his work;-and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down:
And many a hill did Lucy climb;

But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night,
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.

They wept-and turning homeward, cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet!"
–When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone wall;

And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same:
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
The footmarks one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there was none !

-Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child:

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

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,
Uprose the morning sun;

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

1799.

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:

"Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this, which I have left
Full thirty years behind.

“And just above yon slope of corn
Such colours, and no other,
Were in the sky, that April morn.
Of this the very brother.

"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
I e'er had loved before.

"And, turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the church-yard yew,

A blooming girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.