The voice which I did more esteem Than music in her sweetest key, Those eyes which unto me did seem More comfortable than the day Those now by me, as they have been!

Shall never more be heard or seen; But what I once enjoyed in them Shall seem hereafter as a dream.

All earthly comforts vanish thus -
So little hold of them have we
That we from them or they from us
May in a moment ravished be;

Yet we are neither just nor wise
If present mercies we despise,
Or mind not how there may be made
A thankful use of what we had.

I therefore do not so bemoan,
Though these beseeming tears I drop,
The loss of my beloved one
As they that are deprived of hope;
But in expressing of my grief
My heart receiveth some relief,
And joyeth in the good I had,
Although my sweets are bitter made.

Lord, keep me faithful to the trust
Which my dear spouse reposed in me!
To him now dead preserve me just
In all that should performed be;

For though our being man and wife Extendeth only to this life,

Yet neither life nor death should end The being of a faithful friend.

Unto Thine honor let it be, And for a blessing unto me.

FOR A SERVANT.

DISCOURAGE not thyself, my soul,
Nor murmur, though compelled we be
To live subjected to control!
When many others may be free;
For though the pride of some dis
dains

Our mean and much despised lot,
We shall not lose our honest pains,
Nor shall our sufferance be forgot.

To be a servant is not base,
If baseness be not in the mind,
For servants make but good the place,
Whereto their Maker them assigned:
The greatest princes do no more,
And if sincerely I obey,

Though I am now despised and poor,
I shall become as great as they.

The Lord of heaven and earth was pleased

A servant's form to undertake;
By His endurance I am eased,
And serve with gladness for His sake:
Though checked unjustly I should be,
With silence I reproofs will bear,
For much more injured was He
Whose deeds most worthy praises

were.

joyed,

Let Thy continual aid supply

void,

I always may on Thee rely;
And whether I shall wed again,
Or in a single state remain,

Content with meek and humble heart
I will abide in my degree,

And act an humble servant's part,
Till God shall call me to be free.

THOU lone companion of the spectred night!

I wake amid thy friendly watchful light.

To steal a precious hour from lifeless sleep.

Hark, the wild uproar of the winds! and hark! [the dark, Hell's genius roams the regions of And swells the thundering horrors of the deep!

From cloud to cloud the pale moon hurrying flies,

Now blackened, and now flashing through the skies; [beam. But all is silence here, beneath thy I own I labor for the voice of praise For who would sink in dull oblivion's stream?

Who would not live in songs of distant days?

TO MARY.

IF I had thought thou couldst have

died,

I might not weep for thee; But I forgot, when by thy side,

That thou couldst mortal be: It never through my mind had passed The time would e'er be o'er, And I on thee should look my last, And thou shouldst smile no more!

And still upon that face I look,

And think 'twill smile again; And still the thought I will not brook, That I must look in vain! But when I speak, thou dost not say What thou ne'er left'st unsaid;

And now I feel, as well I may,
Sweet Mary! thou art dead!

If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art,
All cold and all serene

I still might press thy silent heart, And where thy smiles have been! While e'en thy chill, bleak corpse I have,

Thou seemest still mine own;
But there I lay thee in thy grave -
And I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;
And I, perhaps, may soothe this
heart,

In thinking too of thee:

Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne'er seen before,
As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore!

BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corse to the rampart we hurried;

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot

O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly, at dead of night,

The sods with our bayonets turn

ing;

By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,

And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;

But he lay, like a warrior taking his rest,

With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,

And we bitterly thought of the

morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,

And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, [him; And o'er his cold ashes upbraid

Sing, though I shall never hear thee;

May thy soul with pleasure shine
Lasting as the gloom of mine.

Like the sun, thy presence glowing,
Clothes the meanest things in light;
And when thou, like him, art going,
Loveliest objects fade in night.
All things looked so bright about
thee,

That they nothing seem without thee;

By that pure and lucid mind
Earthly things were too, refined.

Go, thou vision, wildly gleaming,

Softly on my soul that fell; Go, for me no longer beamingHope and Beauty! fare ye well! Go, and all that once delighted Take, and leave me all benighted— Glory's burning, generous swell Fancy, and the poet's shell.

THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,

When fond recollection presents them

to view!

The orchard, the meadow, the deeptangled wildwood,

And every loved spot which my infancy knew!

The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it; The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell;

The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it;

And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well[bucket, The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.

That moss-covered vessel I hailed as a treasure;

For often at noon, when returned from the field,

I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure

The purest and sweetest that nature

And sighs for the bucket that hangs in the wellThe old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,

The moss-covered bucket that hangs in the well!

Tintern Abbey.]

acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less,

1 trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect inore sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burden of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world

Is lightened; that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead

us on,

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,

And even the motion of our human

blood,

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.

I have learned To look on Nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting

suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.

Tintern Abbey.

APOSTROPHE TO THE POET'S
SISTER.

Thou art with me, here, upon the banks

Of this fair river; thou, my dearest friend,

My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is,

nor all