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Beside this Fountain’s brink.

      My eyes are dim with childish tears.

       My heart is idly stirr’d,

       For the same sound is in my ears,

       Which in those days I heard.

      Thus fares it still in our decay:

       And yet the wiser mind

       Mourns less for what age takes away

       Than what it leaves behind.

      The blackbird in the summer trees,

       The lark upon the hill,

       Let loose their carols when they please,

       Are quiet when they will.

      With Nature never do they wage

       A foolish strife; they see

       A happy youth, and their old age

       Is beautiful and free:

      But we are press’d by heavy laws,

       And often, glad no more,

       We wear a face of joy, because

       We have been glad of yore.

      If there is one who need bemoan

       His kindred laid in earth,

       The houshold hearts that were his own,

       It is the man of mirth.

      ”My days, my Friend, are almost gone,

       My life has been approv’d,

       And many love me, but by none

       Am I enough belov’d.”

      ”Now both himself and me he wrongs,

       The man who thus complains!

       I live and sing my idle songs

       Upon these happy plains,”

      ”And, Matthew, for thy Children dead

       I’ll be a son to thee!”

       At this he grasp’d his hands, and said,

       ”Alas! that cannot be.”

      We rose up from the fountain-side,

       And down the smooth descent

       Of the green sheep-track did we glide,

       And through the wood we went,

      And, ere we came to Leonard’s Rock,

       He sang those witty rhymes

       About the crazy old church-clock

       And the bewilder’d chimes.

NUTTING.

       Table of Contents

      — It seems a day,

       One of those heavenly days which cannot die,

       When forth I sallied from our cottage-door,

       And with a wallet o’er my shoulder slung,

       A nutting crook in hand, I turn’d my steps

       Towards the distant woods, a Figure quaint,

       Trick’d out in proud disguise of Beggar’s weeds

       Put on for the occasion, by advice

       And exhortation of my frugal Dame.

      Motley accoutrements! of power to smile

       At thorns, and brakes, and brambles, and, in truth,

       More ragged than need was. Among the woods,

       And o’er the pathless rocks, I forc’d my way

       Until, at length, I came to one dear nook

       Unvisited, where not a broken bough

       Droop’d with its wither’d leaves, ungracious sign

       Of devastation, but the hazels rose

       Tall and erect, with milk-white clusters hung,

       A virgin scene! — A little while I stood,

       Breathing with such suppression of the heart

       As joy delights in; and with wise restraint

       Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed

       The banquet, or beneath the trees I sate

       Among the flowers, and with the flowers I play’d;

       A temper known to those, who, after long

       And weary expectation, have been bless’d

       With sudden happiness beyond all hope. —

       — Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves

       The violets of five seasons reappear

       And fade, unseen by any human eye,

       Where fairy waterbreaks do murmur on

       For ever, and I saw the sparkling foam,

       And with my cheek on one of those green stones

       That, fleec’d with moss, beneath the shady trees,

       Lay round me scatter’d like a flock of sheep,

       I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound,

       In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay

       Tribute to ease, and, of its joy secure

       The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,

       Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,

       And on the vacant air. Then up I rose,

       And dragg’d to earth both branch and bough, with crash

       And merciless ravage; and the shady nook

       Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower

       Deform’d and sullied, patiently gave up

       Their quiet being: and unless I now

       Confound my present feelings with the past,

       Even then, when, from the bower I turn’d away,

       Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings

       I felt a sense of pain when I beheld

       The silent trees and the intruding sky. —

      Then, dearest Maiden! move along these shades

       In gentleness of heart with gentle hand

       Touch, — for there is a Spirit in the woods.

      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.

      The floating clouds their state shall lend

       To her, for her the willow bend,

       Nor shall

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