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Is stouter of the two.

       And though you with your utmost skill

       From labour could not wean them,

       Alas! ‘tis very little, all

       Which they can do between them.

      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

       Enclosed when he was stronger;

       But what avails the land to them,

       Which they can till no longer?

      Few months of life has he in store,

       As he to you will-tell,

       For still, the more he works, the more

       His poor old ancles swell.

       My gentle reader, I perceive

       How patiently you’ve waited,

       And I’m afraid 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 every thing.

       What more I have to say is short,

       I hope you’ll 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

       About the root of an old tree,

       A stump of rotten wood.

       The mattock totter’d in his hand;

       So vain was his endeavour

       That at the root of the old tree

       He might have worked for ever.

      ”You’ve overtasked, good Simon Lee,

       Give me your tool” to him I said;

       And at the word right gladly he

       Received my proffer’d aid.

       I struck, and with a single blow

       The tangled root I sever’d,

       At which the poor old man so long

       And vainly had endeavoured.

      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

       Has oftner left me mourning.

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

       Table of Contents

      I heard a thousand blended notes,

       While in a grove I sate reclined,

       In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

       Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

      To her fair works did nature link

       The human soul that through me ran;

       And much it griev’d my heart to think

       What man has made of man.

      Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,

       The periwinkle trail’d its wreathes;

       And ‘tis my faith that every flower

       Enjoys the air it breathes.

      The birds around me hopp’d and play’d:

       Their thoughts I cannot measure,

       But the least motion which they made,

       It seem’d a thrill of pleasure.

      The budding twigs spread out their fan,

       To catch the breezy air;

       And I must think, do all I can,

       That there was pleasure there.

      If I these thoughts may not prevent,

       If such be of my creed the plan,

       Have I not reason to lament

       What man has made of man?

THE NIGHTINGALE.

       Table of Contents

      By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

      Written in April, 1798.

      No cloud, no relique of the sunken day

       Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip

       Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.

       Come, we will rest on this old mossy Bridge!

       You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,

       But hear no murmuring: it flows silently

       O’er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,

       A balmy night! and tho’ the stars be dim,

       Yet let us think upon the vernal showers

       That gladden the green earth, and we shall find

       A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

      And hark! the Nightingale begins its song

       ”Most musical, most melancholy” Bird!

       A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!

       In nature there is nothing melancholy.

       — But some night wandering Man, whose heart was pierc’d

       With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,

       Or slow distemper or neglected love,

       (And so, poor Wretch! fill’d all things with himself

       And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale

       Of his own sorrows) he and such as he

       First named these notes a melancholy strain:

       And many a poet echoes the conceit;

       Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme

      When he had better far have stretch’d his limbs

       Beside a ‘brook in mossy forest-dell

       By sun or moonlight, to the influxes

       Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements

       Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song

       And of his fame forgetful! so his fame

       Should share in nature’s immortality,

       A venerable thing! and so his song

       Should make all nature lovelier, and itself

       Be lov’d, like nature! — But ‘twill not be so;

       And youths and maidens most poetical

       Who lose the deep’ning twilights of the spring

       In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still

       Full of

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