And oft the melancholy theme supply)
There, while the prospect through the gazing

eye

Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul, We'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame, Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, As neighbouring fountains image, each the

whole :

Then, when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth, We'll discipline the heart to pure delight, Rekindling sober joy's domestic flame.

They whom I love shall love thee, honoured youth!

Now may Heaven realize this vision bright!

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF

FORTUNE.

WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY.

HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plundered want's half-sheltered hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves
strewed,

Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffined limbs
The flocking flesh-birds screamed! Then, while
thy heart

Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young

mind)

What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!

O abject! if, to sickly dreams resigned, All effortless thou leave life's commonweal A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.

SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER.

DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the West! How many various-fated years have past,

What happy, and what mournful hours, since last

I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes

I never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows

gray,

And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes, Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On

my way,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

THE FOSTER MOTHER'S TALE.

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.

The following Scene, as unfit for the stage, was taken from the tragedy in the year 1797, and published in the Lyrical Ballads.

Enter TERESA and SELMA.

Ter. 'Tis said, he spake of you familiarly, As mine and Alvar's common foster-mother. Sel. Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be, That joined your names with mine! O my sweet Lady,

As often as I think of those dear times,

When you two little ones would stand, at eve, On each side of my chair, and make me learn All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk In gentle phrase; then bid me sing to you 'Tis more like heaven to come, than what has been!

Ter. But that entrance, Selma?

Sel. Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale! Ter. No one.

Sel.

My husband's father told it me,

Poor old Sesina-angels rest his soul;
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw

With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel?
Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree,
He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined
With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him
home,

And reared him at the then Lord Valdez' cost,
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,

A pretty boy, but most unteachable

And never learn'd a prayer, nor told a bead,
But knew the names of birds, and mocked their

notes,

And whistled, as he were a bird himself.

And all the autumn 'twas his only play

To gather seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them
With earth and water on the stumps of trees.
A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,
A gray-haired man, he loved this little boy:
The boy loved him, and, when the friar taught
him,

He soon could write with the pen; and from that
time

Lived chiefly at the convent or the castle.

So he became a rare and learned youth :

But O! poor wretch! he read, and read, and read,

Till his brain turned; and ere his twentieth year

He had unlawful thoughts of many things:

And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
With holy men, nor in a holy place.