Who might have wandered with thee.-Mother's love,
Nor less than mother's love in other breasts,
Will, among us warm-clad and warmly-housed
Do for thee what the finger of the heavens
Doth all too often harshly execute
For thy unblest coevals, amid wilds
Where fancy hath small liberty to grace
The affections, to exalt them or refine;
And the maternal sympathy itself,
Though strong, is, in the main, a joyless tie
Of naked instinct, wound about the heart.
Happier, far happier, is thy lot and ours!
Even now-to solemnise thy helpless state,
And to enliven in the mind's regard
Thy passive beauty-parallels have risen,
Resemblances, or contrasts, that connect,
Within the region of a father's thoughts,
Thee and thy mate and sister of the sky.
And first; thy sinless progress, through a world
By sorrow darkened and by care disturbed,

Apt likeness bears to hers, through gathered clouds,
Moving untouched in silver purity,

And cheering oft-times their reluctant gloom.
Fair are ye both, and both are free from stain :
But thou, how leisurely thou fill'st thy horn
With brightness! leaving her to post along,
And range about, disquieted in change,
And still impatient of the shape she wears.
Once up, once down the hill, one journey, Babe,
That will suffice thee; and it seems that now
Thou hast fore-knowledge that such task is thine ;
Thou travellest so contentedly, and sleep'st
In such a heedless peace. Alas! full soon
Hath this conception, grateful to behold,
Changed countenance, like an object sullied o'er

By breathing mist; and thine appears to be
A mournful labour, while to her is given
Hope, and a renovation without end.

-That smile forbids the thought; for on thy face
Smiles are beginning, like the beams of dawn,
To shoot and circulate; smiles have there been seen;
Tranquil assurances that Heaven supports
The feeble motions of thy life, and cheers
Thy loneliness: or shall those smiles be called
Feelers of love, put forth as if to explore
This untried world, and to prepare thy way
Through a strait passage intricate and dim?
Such are they; and the same are tokens, signs,
Which, when the appointed season hath arrived,
Joy, as her holiest language, shall adopt;

And Reason's godlike power be proud to own.

LINES

Left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree, which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite, on a desolate Part of the Shore, commanding a beautiful Prospect.

NAY, Traveller! rest. This lonely Ŷew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb?
What if the bee love not these barren boughs?
Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.

Who he was

That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod
First covered o'er, and taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
I well remember.-He was one who owned
No common soul. In youth by science nursed,
And led by nature into a wild scene

Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth

A favoured Being, knowing no desire

Which Genius did not hallow,-'gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate,
And scorn,-against all enemies prepared,

All but neglect.

The world, for so it thought,
Owed him no service; wherefore he at once
With indignation turned himself away,
And with the food of pride sustained his soul
In solitude.--Stranger! these gloomy boughs
Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,
His only visitants a straggling sheep,
The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper :

And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath
And juniper and thistle sprinkled o'er,
Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour
A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
An emblem of his own unfruitful life:

And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze
On the more distant scene,-how lovely 'tis
Thou see'st, and he would gaze till it became
Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain
The beauty, still more beauteous! Nor, that time,
When nature had subdued him to herself,
Would he forget those beings, to whose minds,
Warm from the labours of benevolence,
The world and human life appeared a scene
Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh
With mournful joy, 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.
He died,

In this deep vale

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.

FRENCH REVOLUTION,

AS IT APPEARED TO ENTHUSIASTS AT ITS
COMMENCEMENT.

OH! pleasant exercise of hope and joy !
For mighty were the auxiliars, which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven !-Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in Romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights
When most intent on making of herself
A prime enchantress-to assist the work,
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,
The beauty wore of promise-that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself)

The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
The playfellows of fancy, who had made