"THREE YEARS SHE GREW."

THREE years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;

This Child I to myself will take;

She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

"Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

"She shall be sportive as the Fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

"The floating Clouds their state shall lend

To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the Storm

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

"The Stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where Rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

"And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give

While she and I together live

Here in this happy Dell."

Thus Nature spake-The work was done—

How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.

"SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS."

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love :

A Violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!

—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

"A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL."

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees,

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

"I TRAVELLED AMONG UNKNOWN MEN."

I TRAVELLED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;

Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine is too the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

TO THE CUCKOO.

O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo

shall I call thee Bird,

Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass

Thy twofold shout I hear;

From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near.

Though babbling only, to the Vale,

Of sunshine and of flowers,

Thou bringest unto me a tale

Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!

Even yet thou art to me

No Bird but an invisible Thing,

A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my School-boy days

I listened to; that Cry

Which made me look a thousand ways In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place;

That is fit home for Thee!

TO A SKY-LARK.

ETHEREAL Minstrel ! Pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

To the last point of vision, and beyond,

Mount, daring Warbler! that love-prompted strain,
('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond)
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain :
Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the Nightingale her shady wood;

A privacy of glorious light is thine;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;

True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!