"The stars of midnight shall be dear

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To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

Thus Nature spake the work was done

How soon my Lucy's race was run !

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears;

She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

1799.

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No motion has she now, no force;

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She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

A POET'S EPITAPH.

ART thou a Statist in the van

Of public conflicts trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man;

Then may'st thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou? — draw not nigh!
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?

A rosy Man, right plump to see? Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near, This grave no cushion is for thee.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,

A Soldier, and no man of chaff? Welcome! but lay thy sword aside, And lean upon a peasant's staff.

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One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling

Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;

A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,

An intellectual All-in-all!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;

Sleep in thy intellectual crust;

Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He, with modest looks,

And clad in homely russet brown? He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,

Or fountain in a noon-day grove; And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth

Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,

The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak; both Man and Boy,

Hath been an idler in the land;

Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.

>

Come hither in thy hour of strength;
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length;
Or build thy house upon this grave.

LUCY GRAY;

OR, SOLITUDE.

OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

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1799.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;

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She dwelt on a wide moor,

The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night -
You to the town must go;

And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your mother through the snow."

"That, Father! will I gladly do:
'Tis scarcely afternoon

The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon!"

That overlooked the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood,

A furlong from their door.

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