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      With staff in hand across the cleft

       The Challenger began his march;

       And now, all eyes and feet, hath gain’d

       The middle of the arch.

       When list! he hears a piteous moan —

       Again! his heart within him dies —

       His pulse is stopp’d, his breath is lost,

       He totters, pale as any ghost,

       And, looking down, he spies

       A Lamb, that in the pool is pent

       Within that black and frightful rent.

      VII.

      The Lamb had slipp’d into the stream,

       And safe without a bruise or wound

       The Cataract had borne him down

       Into the gulph profound,

       His dam had seen him when he fell,

       She saw him down the torrent borne;

       And while with all a mother’s love

       She from the lofty rocks above

       Sent forth a cry forlorn,

       The Lamb, still swimming round and round

       Made answer to that plaintive sound.

      VIII.

      When he had learnt, what thing it was,

       That sent this rueful cry; I ween,

       The Boy recover’d heart, and told

       The sight which he had seen.

       Both gladly now deferr’d their task;

       Nor was there wanting other aid —

       A Poet, one who loves the brooks

       Far better than the sages’ books,

       By chance had thither stray’d;

       And there the helpless Lamb he found

       By those huge rocks encompass’d round.

      IX.

      He drew it gently from the pool,

       And brought it forth into the light;

       The Shepherds met him with his charge

       An unexpected sight!

       Into their arms the Lamb they took,

       Said they, “He’s neither maim’d nor scarr’d” —

       Then up the steep ascent they hied

       And placed him at his Mother’s side;

       And gently did the Bard

       Those idle Shepherd-boys upbraid,

       And bade them better mind their trade.

      ’Tis said, that some have died for love:

       And here and there a churchyard grave is found

       In the cold North’s unhallow’d ground,

       Because the wretched man himself had slain,

       His love was such a grievous pain.

       And there is one whom I five years have known;

       He dwells alone

       Upon Helvellyn’s side.

       He loved — The pretty Barbara died,

       And thus he makes his moan:

       Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid

       When thus his moan he made.

      Oh! move thou Cottage from behind that oak

       Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,

       That in some other way yon smoke

       May mount into the sky!

       The clouds pass on; they from the Heavens depart:

       I look — the sky is empty space;

       I know not what I trace;

       But when I cease to look, my hand is on my heart.

      O! what a weight is in these shades! Ye leaves,

       When will that dying murmur be suppress’d?

       Your sound my heart of peace bereaves,

       It robs my heart of rest.

       Thou Thrush, that singest loud and loud and free,

       Into yon row of willows flit,

       Upon that alder sit;

       Or sing another song, or chuse another tree

      Roll back, sweet rill! back to thy mountain bounds,

       And there for ever be thy waters chain’d!

       For thou dost haunt the air with sounds

       That cannot be sustain’d;

       If still beneath that pine-tree’s ragged bough

       Headlong yon waterfall must come,

       Oh let it then be dumb! —

       Be any thing, sweet rill, but that which thou art now.

      Thou Eglantine whose arch so proudly towers

       (Even like a rainbow spanning half the vale)

       Thou one fair shrub, oh! shed thy flowers,

       And stir not in the gale.

       For thus to see thee nodding in the air,

       To see thy arch thus stretch and bend,

       Thus rise and thus descend,

       Disturbs me, till the sight is more than I can bear.

      The man who makes this feverish complaint

       Is one of giant stature, who could dance

       Equipp’d from head to foot in iron mail.

       Ah gentle Love! if ever thought was thine

       To store up kindred hours for me, thy face

       Turn from me, gentle Love, nor let me walk

       Within the sound of Emma’s voice, or know

       Such happiness as I have known to-day.

POOR SUSAN.

       Table of Contents

      At the corner of Wood-Street, when daylight appears,

       There’s a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:

       Poor Susan has pass’d by the spot and has heard

       In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

      ’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees

       A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;

       Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,

       And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

      Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,

       Down which she so often has tripp’d with her pail,

       And a single small cottage, a nest like a Jove’s,

       The only one dwelling on earth that she loves.

      She looks, and her heart is in Heaven, but they fade,

       The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;

       The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,

       And the colours have all pass’d away from her eyes.

      Poor Outcast! return — to receive thee once more

       The house of thy Father

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