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.

Physician art thou? one all eyes,
Philosopher! a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside, and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
Thy ever-dwindling soul, away!

A Moralist perchance appears ;

Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod: And he has neither eyes nor ears;

Himself his world, and his own God;

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.

(1799-)

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.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
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!'

At this the Father raised his hook,

And snapped a faggot-band;

He plied his work ;-and Lucy took

The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke

Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:

She wandered up and down ;
And many a hill did Lucy climb,

But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.

They wept-and, turning homeward, cried, 'In heaven we all shall meet!'

-When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone-wall:

And then an open field they crossed;

The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;

And further there were none!

-Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

(1799.)

LUCY.

1.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye! -Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

(1799.)

2.

Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown ;

This Child I to myself will take,

She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me

The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.