Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease,

Would be rational peace-a philosopher's ease.

There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,

And attention full ten times as much as there needs;

10

Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy;

And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.

There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there,

There's virtue, the title it surely may claim, 15 Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the

name.

This picture from nature may seem to depart, Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart;

And I for five centuries right gladly would be Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he. 20

1800.

V.

TO MY SISTER.

Ir is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before,
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

5

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you;-and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:

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

Love, now a universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth :
-It is the hour of feeling.

ΙΟ

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20

We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.

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Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

40

1798

VI.

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,—
'Tis said he once was tall.

Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When Echo bandied, round and round,
The halloo of Simon Lee.

In those proud days, he little cared
For husbandry or tillage;

To blither tasks did Simon rouse

5

ΙΟ

15

The sleepers of the village.

He all the country could outrun,

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

He reeled, and was stone-blind.

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

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

But, oh the heavy change!-bereft

Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see! Old Simon to the world is left

In liveried poverty.

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.

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30

Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village Common.

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 to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer?

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45

Oft, working by her Husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;

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For she, with scanty cause for pride,

Is stouter of the two.

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

'Tis little, very little-all

That they can do between them.

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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 now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

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,
And you must 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

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