III.

THREE YEARS SHE GREW IN SUN AND

SHOWER."

THREE years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown ;

This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.

"Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

"She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

"The floating clouds their state shall lend

To her; for her the willow bend :

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the Storm

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form By silent sympathy.

"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her car

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

"And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give

While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell."

Thus Nature spake the work was done

How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

1799.

IV.

"A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL."

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

1799.

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees,

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks and stones and trees!

A POET'S EPITAPH.

ART thou a Statist, in the van

Of public business trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man;
Then mayest thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou ?—draw not nigh;
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?
A rosy Man, right plump to see?
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near:
This grave no cushion is for thee.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,
A Soldier, and no man of chaff?
Welcome !—but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.

Physician art thou?

One all eyes,

Philosopher! a fingering slave,

One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside, and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
Thy ever-dwindling soul away!

A Moralist perchance appears;

Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:
And he has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God:

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;

Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley he has viewed ;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,—
The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak; both Man and Boy,
Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.

Come hither in thy hour of strength;
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length;
Or build thy house upon this grave.

1790.