The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea :
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder-everlastingly.

Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

After-thought to the Duddon Sonnets

I

THOUGHT of thee, my partner and my guide,

As being past away. Vain sympathies !

For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide ;

Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies ;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish ;-be it so?
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's trans-
cendent dower,

We feel that we are greater than we know.

The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves

Order'd by an intelligence so wise,

As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen ;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize :

And in this wisdom of the Holly Tree

Can emblems see

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme, One which may profit in the aftertime.

Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear Harsh and austere,

To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt I know, Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,

The Holly leaves a sober hue display
Less bright than they,

But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,
So would I seem among the young and gay
More grave than they,

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly Tree.

My Days among the Dead are Passed

MY days among the dead are past;

Around me I behold,

Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;

My never failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe ;

And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,

My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thankful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the Dead, with them
I live in long-past years,

Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,

And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.

My hopes are with the Dead, anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them will travel on
Through all Futurity:

Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

D

CAROLINE BOWLES (MRS. SOUTHEY)

The Primrose

I

SAW it in my evening walk,

A little lonely flower!

Under a hollow bank it grew,

Deep in a mossy bower.

An oak's gnarl'd root, to roof the cave
With Gothic fretwork sprung,
Whence jewell'd fern, and arum leaves,
And ivy garlands hung.

And from beneath came sparkling out
From a fallen tree's old shell,

A little rill, that clipt about

The lady in her cell.

And there, methought, with bashful pride,
She seem'd to sit and look
On her own maiden loveliness
Pale imaged in the brook.

No other flower-no rival grew
Beside my pensive maid;
She dwelt alone, a cloister'd nun,
In solitude and shade.