A time-worn tree, he could not bring
His heart to screen the merry king,

Or countenance his scandals;
Then men were measured by their wit,
And then the mimic statesmen lit

At either end their candles.

When Blake was busy with the Dutch
They gave his poor old arms a crutch;

And thrice four maids and men ate
A meal within his rugged bark,
When Coventry bewitched the park,

And Chatham swayed the senate.

His few remaining boughs were green,
And dappled sunbeams danced between,
Upon the dappled deer,

When, clad in black, pair were met
To read the Waterloo Gazette,

They mourned their darling here.

They joined their boy. The tree at last Lies prone, discoursing of the past,

Some fancy-dreams awaking, Resigned, though headlong changes come, Though nations arm to tuck of drum, And dynasties are quaking.

Romantic spot! By honest pride
Of eld tradition sanctified;

My pensive vigil keeping,

I feel thy beauty like a spell,

And thoughts, and tender thoughts, upwell,
That fill my heart to weeping.

*

*

Hawkshead.

HAWKSHEAD.

AND in the frosty season, when the sun

Was set, and visible for many a mile

The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,

I heeded not their summons: happy time

Frederick Locker.

It was indeed for all of us,
It was a time of rapture!
The village clock tolled six, I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,
We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase

for me

Clear and loud

--

And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west

The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star

That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me, - even as if the earth had rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round!

Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.

Ye presences of nature in the sky
And on the earth! Ye visions of the hills,
And souls of lonely places! can I think
A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed
Such ministry, when ye through many a year
Haunting me thus among my boyish sports,
On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills,
Impressed upon all forms the characters
Of danger or desire; and thus did make

The surface of the universal earth

With triumph and delight, with hope and fear,
Work like a sea?

William Wordsworth.

Heartholm.

HEARTHOLM.

ONCE

NCE more upon this happy hill
Doth yet my free foot bound at will;
About those cliffs, whose hearts of stone
To spade and mattock inly groan,
Well to reward the miner's pains,
In wealth from out a thousand veins,
Poor and past use, in age resigned
To ruin like our human kind,
And now and then o'erwhelming all,
Midst sullen thunder, in their fall;
Above the moorlands, brown and shorn,
On whose rough beds the winds are born,
From hardy north-blast, flinging wreaths
Of cradled snow, to that which breathes
Too infant-like to bear its tale

Of heathery sweetness to the vale;

And through those woods, my boyhood knew
And loved so well, whose memories strew
Their pathways thick as leaves

Upon the dreary autumn eves:
Once more I tread these pleasant fields
With chainless heart, fair Devon yields
Once more the old accustomed rest,
Most welcome as most absent guest.

Helvellyn.

HELVELLYN.

I

CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;

All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling, And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge, nameless rock in the front was ascending, When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

Dark green was that spot mid the brown mountain heather,

Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay, Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,

Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay. Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended, The much-loved remains of her master defended,

And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?