Of thoughts with better thoughts at strife,
The most familiar bane of life
Since parting Innocence bequeathed
Mortality to Earth!

Soft clouds, the whitest of the year,

Sailed through the sky-the brooks ran clear;
The lambs from rock to rock were bounding;
With songs the budded groves resounding;
And to my heart is still endeared

The faith with which it then was cheered;
The faith which saw that gladsome pair
Walk through the fire with unsinged hair.
Or, if such thoughts must needs deceive,
Kind Spirits! may we not believe
That they, so happy and so fair,
Through your sweet influence and the care
Of pitying Heaven at least were free
From touch of deadly injury?
Destined, whate'er their earthly doom,
For mercy and immortal bloom!

MATTHEW.

In the School of Hawkshead is a Tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the Names of the several Persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the Foundation of the School, with the Time at which they entered upon and quitted their Office. Opposite to one of those Names the Author wrote the following Lines.

IF Nature, for a favourite Child,
In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review

This tablet, that thus humbly rears
In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.

-When through this little wreck of fame,
Cipher and syllable! thine eye

Has travelled down to Matthew's name,
Pause with no common sympathy.

And, if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed :
For Matthew a request I make
Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,

Is silent as a standing pool;
Far from the chimney's merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.

The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
Were tears of light, the dew of gladness.

Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up-

He felt with spirit so profound.

-Thou soul of God's best earthly mould ! Thou happy Soul! and can it be That these two words of glittering gold Are all that must remain of thee?

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS.

WE walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;

And Matthew stopped, he looked and said, "The will of God be done!"

A village Schoolmaster was he,

With hair of glittering gray;

As blithe a man as you could see

On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass

And by the steaming rills,

We travelled merrily, to pass

A day among the hills.

"Our work," said I, "was well begun ;

Then, from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,

So sad a sigh has brought?"

A second time did Matthew stop;

And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,

To me he made reply:

"Yon cloud with that long purple cleft

Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this which I have left
Full thirty years behind.

"And just above yon slope of corn

Such colours, and no other,

Were in the sky, that April morn,

Of this the very brother.

"With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

And, coming to the church, stopped short

Beside my daughter's grave.

"Nine summers had she scarcely seen,

The pride of all the vale;

And then she sang ;-she would have been A very nightingale.

"Six feet in earth my Emma lay;

And yet I loved her more,

For so it seemed, than till that day

I e'er had loved before.

"And, turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the churchyard yew,

A blooming girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.

"A basket on her head she bare ; Her brow was smooth and white : To see a child so very fair,

It was a pure delight!

"No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripped with foot so free;
She seemed as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

"There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;

I looked at her, and looked again :
-And did not wish her mine."

Matthew is in his grave, yet now,
Methinks, I see him stand,
As at that moment, with a bough
Of wilding in his hand.

THE FOUNTAIN.

A CONVERSATION.

WE talked with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,

A pair of Friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,

Beside a mossy seat;

And from the turf a fountain broke,

And gurgled at our feet.

"Now, Matthew!" said I, "let us match

This water's pleasant tune

With some old Border-song, or Catch,

That suits a summer's noon;

"Or of the Church-clock and the chimes

Sing here beneath the shade,

That half-mad thing of witty rhymes

Which you last April made!"