Sonnet.

WORDSWORTH.

ITH ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,
Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed;
Some lying fast at anchor in the road,
Some veering up and down, one knew not why.
A goodly vessel did I then espy

Come like a giant from a haven broad;

And lustily along the bay she strode,
"Her tackling rich, and of apparel high."
This ship was naught to me, nor I to her,
Yet I pursued her with a lover's look;
This ship to all the rest did I prefer :

When will she turn, and whither? She will brook
No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir :
On went she, and due north her journey took.

A Mountain Landscape.

SOUTHEY.

LITTLE way

He turned aside, by natural impulses
Moved, to behold Cadwallon's lonely hut,
That lonely dwelling stood among the hills,
By a gray mountain's stream; just elevate
Above the winter torrents did it stand,
Upon a craggy bank; an orchard slope
Arose behind, and joyous was the scene,
In early summer, when those antic trees
Shone with their blushing blossoms, and the flax
Twinkled beneath the breeze its liveliest green.
But, save the flax-field and that orchard slope,
All else was desolate, and now all wore

One sober hue; the narrow vale, which wound
Among the hills, was gray with rocks, that peered
Above its shallow soil; the mountain side
Was with loose stones bestrewn, which oftentimes
Sliding beneath the foot of straggling goat,
Clattered adown the steep; or huger crags,

Which, when the coming frost should loosen them,
Would thunder down.

Adown the vale,

Broken by stones, and o'er a stony bed,

Roared the loud mountain stream.

Solitude.

THOMSON.

EE the fading many-coloured woods,

Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk, and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green

To sooty dark. These now the lonesome muse,
Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks;
And give the season in its latest view.
Meantime, light shadowing all, a sober calm
Fleeces unbounded ether; whose least wave
Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn
The gentle current: while, illumined wide,
The dewy skirted clouds imbibe the sun,
And through their lucid veil his softened force
Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time
For those whom wisdom and whom nature charm
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And soar above this little scene of things;
To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet,
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace,
And woo lone quiet in her silent walks.

Thus solitary, and in pensive guise,

Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead,

And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard
One dying strain to cheer the woodman's toil.

Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint,
Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse;
While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,
And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late

G