WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. (1770-1850.) BORN at Cockermouth in Cumberland. Received his elementary education at Hawkshead Grammar School, Lancashire, and subsequently entered St. John's College, Cambridge. About the year 1813 he settled among the hills of Cumberland, and for more than forty years dwelt at Rydal Mount, a cottage commanding views of Windermere, Grasmere, and of some of the most picturesque mountain scenery in the "Lake District." On his settlement at Rydal Mount, received the lucrative appointment of Distributor of Stamps for Cumberland and Westmoreland. In 1840 resigned this in favour of his son, and soon afterwards a pension of £300 a year was conferred upon him by the crown, on the recommendation of Sir Robert Peel. On the death of Southey in 1843, was appointed poet laureate, after which his muse was almost wholly silent. Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount on the 7th of April, 1850, and was buried in Grasmere churchyard. His chief works are:-The Excursion; The White Doe of Rylstone; Peter Bell; Yarrow Revisited; Lines on Revisiting the Wye; The Prelude; Ode to Duty; Lucy Gray, etc. WE ARE SEVEN. A SIMPLE child That lightly draws its breath, I met a little cottage girl : She was eight years old, she said; She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad; Her beauty made me glad. fair; "Sisters and brothers, little maid, How many may you be?" "How many? Seven in all," she said, "And where are they? I pray you tell." Two of us in the churchyard lie, "You say that two at Conway dwell, Yet ye are seven !-I pray you tell, "You run about my little maid! "Their graves are green, they may be seen," The little maid replied, "Twelve steps or more from my My stockings there I often knit, mother's door, And, often after sunset, sir, The first that died was little Jane; So in the churchyard she was laid; And when the ground was white with snow, "How many are you then," said I, "O master! we are seven." "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.” LUCY GRAY. OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray; No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew; You yet may spy the fawn at play, 'To-night will be a stormy night, And take a lantern, child, to light "That, father, I will gladly do ; The minster clock has just struck two; At this the father raised his hook, Not blither is the mountain roe : The storm came on before its time; The wretched parents all that night At daybreak on a hill they stood That overlooked the moor; And thence they saw the bridge of wood And turning homeward, now they cried, Then downward from the steep hill's edge And then an open field they crossed- 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. THE LAST OF THE FLOCK. IN distant countries have I been, |