And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay ;

His dying words but when I reach'd
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp

Disturb'd her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;
The music, and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherish'd long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blush'd with love and virgin shame;
And, like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heav'd-she stept aside,
As conscious of my look she stept-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She press'd me with a meek embrace;
And, bending back her head, look'd up,
And gazed upon my face.

"Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,

The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride.
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride.
$207. Eclogue. The Old Mansion-House.
SOUTHEY.
Stranger.
OLD friend! why, you seem bent on parish duty,
Breaking the highway stones,-and 'tis a task
Somewhat too hard, methinks,for age like yours!
Old Man.

Stranger.

In right good earnest.
Here's to be turf, they
Round to the door.

trees too
Stood in the court-

They've set about it
All the front is gone;
tell me, and a road
There were some yew

Old Man.

Ay, Master! fine old trees!
My grandfather could just remember back
When they were planted there. It was my task
To keep them trimm'd, and 'twas a pleasure
to me;
[wall!
All straight and smooth, and like a great green
My poor old Lady many a time would come
And tell me where to shear, for she had play'd
In childhood under them, and 'twas her pride
To keep them in their beauty. Plague, I say,
On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have
A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs
And your pert poplar trees;-I could as soon
Have plough'd my father's grave as cut them
down!

Ah! so the new Squire thinks,
And pretty work he makes of it! what 'tis
To have a stranger come to an old house!
Stranger.

Why yes! for one with such a weight of years
Upon his back-I've lived here, man and boy,
In this same parish, well nigh the full age
Of man, being hard upon threescore and ten. It seems you know him not?
I can remember, sixty years ago,
The beautifying of this mansion here,
When my late Lady's father, the old Squire,
Came to the estate.

Old Man.

No, sir ; not I.
They tell me he's expected daily now;
But in my Lady's time he never came
But once, for they were very distant kin.
If he had play'd about here when a child
In that fore court, and eat the yew-berries,
And sate in the porch threading the jessamine
flowers

Which fell so thick, he had not had the heart
To mar all thus!

Stranger.
Come-come! all is not wrong;

Those old, dark windows—

Old Man.

They must fall too. Well! well! I did not think They're demolish'd too,-To live to see all this, and 'tis perhaps As if he could not see through casement glass! A comfort I sha'n't live to see it long. The very red-breasts, that so regular Came to my Lady for her morning crums. Wo'n't know the window now!

It did one good
To pass within ten yards when 'twas in blossom.
There was a sweet briar, too, that grew beside;
My Lady loved at evening to sit there
And knit; and her old dog lay at her feet,
And slept in the sun; 'twas an old favorite
dog,

She did not love him less that he was old
And feeble, and he always had a place
By the fire-side; and when he died at last
She made me dig a grave in the garden for him.
Ah! she was good to all! a woeful day
"Twas for the poor when to her grave she went!
Stranger.

They lost a friend then?

Old Man.

You're a stranger here, Or you wouldn't ask that question. Were they sick?

She had rare cordial waters, and for herbs
She could have taught the doctors. Then at
winter,

When weekly she distributed the bread
In the poor old porch, to see her and to hear
The blessings on her! and I warrant them
They were a blessing to her when her wealth
Had been no comfort else. At Christmas, sir!
It would have warm'd your heart if you had seen
Her Christinas kitchen,-how the blazing fire
Made her fine pewter shine, and holly boughs
So cheerful red,-and as for mistleoe,-
The finest bough that grew in the country
round
[went
Was mark'd for Madam. Then her old ale
So bountiful about! a Christmas cask,
And 'twas a noble one!-God help me, sir!
But I shall never see such days again.

Stranger.

Stranger.

But sure all changes are not needs for the worse,
My friend?

Old Man.

Mayhap they mayn't, sir;-for all that,
All this from a child up, and now to lose it,
I like what I've been used to. I remember
As 'twas I go abroad, and only meet
'Tis losing an old friend. There's nothing left
With men whose fathers I remember boys;
The brook that used to run before my door,
That's gone to the great pond; the trees I learnt
To climb are down; and I see nothing now
That tells me of old times,-except the stones
In the church-yard. You are young, sir, and, I
hope,

Have many years in store,-but pray to God
You mayn't be left the last of all your friends.
Stranger,

Well! well! you've one friend more than

you're aware of. [warrant If the Squire's taste don't suit with yours, I That's all you'll quarrel with: walk in and taste His beer, old friend! and see if your old Lady Ere broach'd a better cask. You did not know

me

§ 208. To H. C.-Six years old.
WORDSWORTH.
O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought!
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought
The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
Thou fairy voyager! that dost float
In such clear water, that thy boat
May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, [gery;
Where earth and heaven do make one ima-
O blessed vision! happy child!
That art so exquisitely wild,

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,

Things may be better yet than you suppose,
Lord of thy house and hospitality;
And you should hope the best.
And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest
Old Man.
But when she sate within the touch of thee.
It don't look well,-Oh! too industrious folly!

These alterations, sir! I'm an old man,
And love the good old fashions; we don't find
Old bounty in new houses. They've destroy'd
All that my Lady loved! her favorite walk
Grubb'd up, and they do say that the great row
Of elms behind the house, which meet a-top,
VOL. VI. Nos. 91 & 92.

Oh! vain and causeless melancholy!
Nature will either end thee quite;
Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,
A young lamb's heart among the full-grown
flocks.

P

A month or more hath she been dead,
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed,
And her together.

A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate
Of pride and joy no common rate,
That flush'd her spirit.

I know not by what name beside
I shall it call-if 'twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied,,

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,

A sweet fore-warning?

§ 213. The common Lot. MONTGOMERY. ONCE, in the flight of ages past,

There lived a man:-and WHO was HE?
-Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled thee.

Unknown the region of his birth,
The land in which he died unknown:
His name has perished from the earth,
This truth survives alone :-

That joy and grief, and hope and fear,
Alternate triumph'd in his breast;
His bliss and woe, a smile, a tear!
-Oblivion hides the rest.

The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirits' rise and fall;
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.

He suffer'd, but his pangs are o'er;
Enjoy'd, but his delights are fled;
Had friends,-his friends are now no more;
And foes, his foes are dead.

He loved, but whom he loved the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb:
O she was fair :-but nought could save
Her beauty from the tomb.

He saw whatever thou hast seen;
Encounter'd all that troubles thee;
He was whatever thou hast been;
He is what thou shalt be.

The rolling seasons, day and night,
Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main,
Erewhile his portion, life and light,
To him exist in vain.

The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye
That once their shades and glory threw,
Have left in yonder silent sky
No vestige where they flew.

The annals of the human race,
Their ruins since the world began,

Of HIм afford no other trace
Than this,-THERE LIVED A MAN!

§ 214. Ode to the West Wind. SHELLEY,

I.

II.

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,

[shed. Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height, [dirge
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: 0,
hear!

III.

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble, and despoil themselves: O, hear!
IV.

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O, uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have
As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed

striven

O, WILD West Wind, thou breath of autumn's As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. being, [dead Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed: Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter flee-A heavy weight of hours has chained and bow

ing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild spirit which art moving every where;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

ed

[proud. One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and

V.
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth
And, by the incantation of this verse,