My Sister! ('tis a wish of mine) Edward will come with you; and, pray, - Put on with speed your woodland dress ; And bring no book: for this one day We'll give to idleness. No joyless forms shall regulate Our living Calendar: We from to-day, my Friend, will date Love, now an universal birth, From heart to heart is stealing, From earth to man, from man to earth: One moment now may give us more Than fifty years of reason: Our minds shall drink at every pore The spirit of the season. Some silent laws our hearts will make, Which they shall long obey: We for the year to come may take Our temper from to-day. And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above, We'll frame the measure of our souls: Then come, my Sister! come, I pray, IX. TO A YOUNG LADY, WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. DEAR Child of Nature, let them rail! A harbour and a hold, Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shalt see A light to young and old. There, healthy as a Shepherd-boy, And treading among flowers of joy, That at no season fade, Thou, while thy Babes around thee cling, Shalt shew us how divine a thing A Woman may be made. Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die, A melancholy slave; But an old age serene and bright, And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave. X. LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING. I HEARD a thousand blended notes, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts To her fair works did Nature link And much it grieved my heart to think Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The birds around me hopped and played; The budding twigs spread out their fan, And I must think, do all I can, From Heaven if this belief be sent, XI. SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN, WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED. In the sweet shire of Cardigan, No man like him the horn could sound, 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 still there's something in the world For when the chiming hounds are out, 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; One prop he has, and only one, Lives with him, near the waterfall, Beside their moss-grown hut of clay, This scrap of land he from the heath Oft, working by her Husband's side, And, though you with your utmost skill Alas! 'tis very little - all Which they can do between them. |