图书图片
PDF
ePub

Inly disturbed, to think that others felt

What he must never feel: and so, lost Man!

On visionary views would fancy feed,

Till his eye streamed with tears.

vale

In this deep

He died, this seat his only monument.

If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms,
Of young imagination have kept pure,
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know
that pride,

Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties

Which he has never used; that thought with him

Is in its infancy. The man whose eye

Is ever on himself doth look on one,

The least of Nature's works, one who might

move

The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, Thou!

Instructed that true knowledge leads to love;
True dignity abides with him alone
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
In lowliness of heart.

SIMON LEE,

THE OLD HUNTSMAN; WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED.

IN the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old Man dwells, a little man,
'Tis said he once was tall.
Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running Huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is blooming as a cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When Echo bandied, round and round,

The halloo of Simon Lee.

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 often, ere the chase was done,
He reeled, and was stone-blind.

And still there's something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;

For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices!

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 ore 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;

His body, dwindled and awry,

Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;

His legs are thin and dry,

One prop he has, and only one,
His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village Common.

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;
'Tis his, but what avails the land
Which he can till no longer?

Oft, working by her Husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do ;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
Alas! 'tis very little-all

That they can do between them.

Few months of life has he in store

As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more

Do his weak ankles swell.

My gentle Reader, I perceive
How patiently you've waited,
And now I fear 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,
And you must kindly take it:

It is no tale; but, should you .hink,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This old Man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour,
That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool," to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.
I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

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
Hath oftener left me mourning.

« 上一页继续 »