Yet sometimes when the secret cup

Of still and serious thought went round It seem'd as if he drank it up,

He felt with spirit so profound.

-Thou soul of God's best earthly mould,

Thou happy soul, and can it be

That these two words of glittering gold

Are all that must remain of thee?

THE

Two APRIL MORNINGS.

We walk'd along, while bright and red

Uprose the morning sun,

And Matthew stopp'd, he look'd, and said, "The will of God be done!"

A village Schoolmaster was he,

With hair of glittering grey;

As blithe a man as you could see

On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,

And by the steaming rills,

We travell'd merrily to pass
A day among the hills.

"Our work," said I,

was well begun ;

Then, from thy breast what thought,

Beneath so beautiful a sun,

So sad a sigh has brought?

A second time did Matthew stop,

And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top

To me he made reply.

Yon cloud with that long purple cleft

Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this which I have left

Full thirty years behind.

And on that slope of springing corn

The self-same crimson hue

Fell from the sky that April morn,

The same which now I view!

With rod and line my

silent sport

I plied by Derwent's wave,

And, coming to the church, stopp'd short

Beside my Daughter's grave.

Nine summers had she scarcely seen

The pride of all the vale;

And then she sang!-she would have been

And yet I lov'd her more,

For so it seem'd, than till that day

I e'er had lov'd before.

And, turning from her grave, I met

Beside the church-yard Yew

A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet

With points of morning dew.

.

A basket on her head she bare,

Her brow was smooth and white,

To see a Child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!

No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripp'd with foot so free,

She seem'd as happy as a wave

That dances on the sea.

There came from me a sigh of pain

Which I could ill confine;

I look'd at her and look'd again;
—And did not wish her mine.

Matthew is in his grave, yet now

Methinks I see him stand,

As at that moment, with his bough

Of wilding in his hand,