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An animal delight though dim!
"Tis all that now remains for him!

I looked, I scanned her o'er and o'er;
The more I looked I wondered more:
When suddenly I seemed to espy
A trouble in her strong black eye;
A remnant of uneasy light,

A flash of something over-bright!
And soon she made this matter plain;
And told me, in a thoughtful strain,
That she had borne a heavy yoke,

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Been stricken by a twofold stroke
Ill health of body; and had pined
Beneath worse ailments of the mind.

So be it! but let praise ascend

To Him who is our Lord and Friend!

Who from disease and suffering

Hath called for thee a second Spring; Repaid thee for that sore distress

By no untimely joyousness;

Which makes of thine a blissful state;

And cheers thy melancholy Mate!

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THOUGH narrow be that Old Man's cares, and near,

The poor Old Man is greater than he seems:
For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams;

An ample sovereignty of eye and ear.
Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer;

The region of his inner spirit teems
With vital sounds, and monitory gleams
Of high astonishment and pleasing fear.

He the seven birds hath seen that never part,
Seen the SEVEN WHISTLERS in their nightly rounds,
And counted them: and oftentimes will start-
For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS,
Doomed, with their impious Lord, the flying Hart,
To chase for ever, on aërial grounds.

VOL. II.

VIII.

INSCRIPTION,

FOR THE SPOT WHERE THE HERMITAGE STOOD ON ST. HERBERT'S ISLAND, DERWENT-WATER.

THIS Island, guarded from profane approach
By mountains high and waters widely spread,

Is that recess to which St. Herbert came
In life's decline; a self-secluded Man,
After long exercise in social cares
And offices humane, intent to adore

The Deity, with undistracted mind,

And meditate on everlasting things.

-Stranger! this shapeless heap of stones and earth (Long be its mossy covering undisturbed!)

Is reverenced as a vestige of the Abode

In which, through many seasons, from the world
Removed, and the affections of the world,

He dwelt in solitude.-But he had left

A Fellow-labourer, whom the good Man loved
As his own soul. And, when within his cave
Alone he knelt before the crucifix

While o'er the Lake the cataract of Lodore
Pealed to his orisons, and when he paced
Along the beach of this small isle and thought
Of his Companion, he would pray that both,
(Now that their earthly duties were fufill'd)
Might die in the same moment. Nor in vain
So prayed he:-as our Chronicles report,
Though here the Hermit numbered his last day,
Far from St. Cuthbert his beloved Friend,
Those holy Men both died in the same hour.

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