She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all pass'd away from her eyes!
W. Wordsworth.

SIMON LEE THE OLD HUNTSMAN

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

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 reel'd and was stone-blind.

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

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.

And he is lean and he is sick,
His body, dwindled and awry,

Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
His legs are thin and dry.

One prop he has, and only one,—

His wife, an aged woman,

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?

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

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 everything.

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 totter'd in his hand;

So vain was his endeavour
That at the root of the old tree
He might have work'd forever.

'You're overtask'd, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool,' to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffer'd aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I sever'd,
At which the poor old man so long
And vainly had endeavour'd.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seem'd to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deed
With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men

Hath oftener left me mourning.

W. Wordsworth.

STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES

THE sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might:
The breath of the moist earth is light
Around its unexpanded buds;

Like many a voice of one delight—

The winds', the birds', the ocean-floods'-
The city's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

I see the deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple sea-weeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore

Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone;

The lightning of the noon-tide ocean

Is flashing round me, and a tone

Arises from its measured motion

How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content, surpassing wealth,
The sage in meditation found,

And walk'd with inward glory crown'd—
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure;
Others I see whom these surround-

Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

Yet now despair itself is mild

Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear,-
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
P. B. Shelley.

A DREAM OF THE UNKNOWN

I DREAM'D that as I wander'd by the way
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,

But kiss'd it and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth,

The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,

When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.