And there they built up, without mortar or lime, A Man on the peak of the crag. They built him of stones gathered up as they lay: "Drink, pretty creature, drink," she said in such a tone That I almost received her heart into my own. I sy belt him and christened him all in one day, 'Twas little Barbara Lewthwaite, a child of beauty A chin both vigorous and hale ; 4d without scruple they called him Ralph Jones. Nos Ralph is renowned for the length of his bones; The Magg of Legberthwaite dale. rare! I watched them with delight, they were a lovely pair. Now with her empty can the maiden turned away: But ere ten yards were gone her footsteps did she stay. Right towards the lamb she looked; and from a shady place I unobserved could see the workings of her face: If Nature to her tongue could measured numbers bring, Thus, thought I, to her lamb that little Maid might sing: "What ails thee, young One? what? Why pull so at thy cord? Is it not well with thee? well both for bed and board? Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be ; Rest, little young One, rest; what is 't that aileth thee? What is it thou wouldst seek? What is wanting to thy heart? Thy limbs are they not strong? And beautiful thou art: This grass is tender grass; these flowers they have no peers; Tar dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink; And that green corn all day is rustling in thy ears! I heard a voice; it said, "Drink, pretty creature, drink!" Ard, looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied Aw-white mountain-lamb with a Maiden at its sile. Se hp nor kine were near; the lamb was all ak ne, its a slender cord was tethered to a stone; cance on the grass did the little Maiden LIFEl, If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy woollen chain, This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst gain; For rain and mountain-storms! the like thou need'st not fear, The rain and storm are things that scarcely can come here. Rest, little young One, rest; thou hast forgot the day When my father found thee first in places far away; Wh to that mountain-lamb she gave its evening Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned must belong, XV. TO H. C. SIX YEARS OLD. O THOU ! whose fancies from afar are brought; The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years. I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality; And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest But when she sate within the touch of thee. O vain and causeless melancholy! Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife XVI. 1802. INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. [This extract is reprinted from "THE FRIEND."] WISDOM and Spirit of the universe! For she looked with such a look, and she spake Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought! with such a tone, That I almost received her heart into my own." And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion! not in vain, Ner was this fellowship vouchsafed to me Te stage-windows through the twilight blazed, 2 was indeed for all of us; for me tares not for his home.-All shod with steel Wessed along the polished ice, in games Ceferate, imitative of the chase dodand pleasures,-the resounding horn, The park loud-chiming, and the hunted hare. * trunga the darkness and the cold we flew, data voice was idle: with the din am, the precipices rang aloud; The cañess trees and every icy crag Tied he iron; while far-distant hills retumult sent an alien sound Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs XVII. THE LONGEST DAY. ADDRESSED TO MY DAUGHTER. LET us quit the leafy arbour, And the torrent murmuring by; For the sun is in his harbour, Weary of the open sky. Evening now unbinds the fetters All that breathe are thankful debtors Yet by some grave thoughts attended Dora sport, as now thou sportest, Who would check the happy feeling Yet at this impressive season, Words which tenderness can speak From the truths of homely reason, Might exalt the loveliest cheek; And, while shades to shades succeeding SUMMER ebbs; each day that follows Is a reflux from on high, 1799. He who governs the creation, In his providence, assigned To the life of human kind. Yet we mark it not;-fruits redden, Hopes that she so long hath known. Be thou wiser, youthful Maiden! Now, even now, ere wrapped in slumber, Fix thine eyes upon the sea That absorbs time, space, and number; Look thou to Eternity! Follow thou the flowing river On whose breast are thither borne Through the year's successive portals; Through the bounds which many a star Marks, not mindless of frail mortals, When his light returns from far. Thus when thou with Time hast travelled Think, if thou on beauty leanest, Duty, like a strict preceptor, Grasp it, if thou shrink and tremble, And ensures those palms of honour 1817. XVIII. THE NORMAN BOY. HIGH on a broad unfertile tract of forest-skirted Down, Nor kept by Nature for herself, nor made by man his own, From home and company remote and every playful joy, Served, tending a few sheep and goats, a ragged Norman Boy. Him never saw I, nor the spot; but from an English Dame, Stranger to me and yet my friend, a simple notice came, With suit that I would speak in verse of that sequestered child Whom, one bleak winter's day, she met upon the dreary Wild. His flock, along the woodland's edge with relics sprinkled o'er Of last night's snow, beneath a sky threatening the fall of more, Where tufts of herbage tempted each, were busy at their feed, And the poor Boy was busier still, with work of anxious heed. There was he, where of branches rent and withered and decayed, For covert from the keen north wind, his hands a hut had made. A tiny tenement, forsooth, and frail, as needs must be A thing of such materials framed, by a builder such as he. The hut stood finished by his pains, nor seemingly lacked aught That skill or means of his could add, but the architect had wrought Some limber twigs into a Cross, well-shaped with fingers nice, To be engrafted on the top of his small edifice. That Cross he now was fastening there, as the surest power and best For supplying all deficiencies, all wants of the rude nest In which, from burning heat, or tempest driving far and wide, The innocent Boy, else shelterless, his lonely head must hide. That Cross belike he also raised as a standard for the true It came with sleep and showed the Boy, no cherub, not transformed, And faithful service of his heart in the worst that But the poor ragged Thing whose ways my human might ensue Of hardship and distressful fear, amid the houseless waste Where he, in his poor self so weak, by Providence was placed. -Here, Lady! might I cease; but nay, let us before we part heart had warmed. Me had the dream equipped with wings, so I took him in my arms, And lifted from the grassy floor, stilling his faint alarms, And bore him high through yielding air my debt of love to pay, With this dear holy shepherd-boy breathe a prayer By giving him, for both our sakes, an hour of |