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 reeled, 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 O 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

Inclosed 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 labor 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 tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavor,

That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

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

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor old Man so long
And vainly had endeavored.

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

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

Alas! the gratitude of men

Hath oftener left me mourning.

VII.

1788.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY,

ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY.

The Reader must be apprised, that the stoves in North Germany generally have the impression of a galloping horse upon them, this being part of the Brunswick Arms.

A PLAGUE on your languages, German and Norse!
Let me have the song of the kettle;

And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse
That gallops away with such fury and force
On this dreary dull plate of black metal.

A child of the field or the grove;

And, sorry for him! the dull, treacherous heat

Has seduced the poor fool from his winter retreat, And he creeps to the edge of my stove.

Alas! how he fumbles about the domains
Which this comfortless oven environ!

He cannot find out in what track he must crawl,
Now back to the tiles, then in search of the wall,
And now on the brink of the iron.

Stock-still there he stands, like a traveller be mazed!

The best of his skill he has tried;

His feelers, methinks, I can see him put forth To the east and the west, to the south and the north,

But he finds neither guide-post nor guide.

His spindles sink under him, foot, leg, and thigh! His eyesight and hearing are lost;

Between life and death his blood freezes and

thaws;

And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze Are glued to his sides by the frost.

No brother, no mate has he near him, while
Can draw warmth from the cheek of my Love;
As blest and as glad, in this desolate gloom,
As if green summer grass were the floor of my

room,

And woodbines were hanging above.