"Oh! it was a time forlorn
When the fatherless was born -
Give her wings that she may fly,
Or she sees her infant die!
Swords that are with slaughter wild
Hunt the Mother and the Child ?
Who will take them from the light?

-Yonder is a Man in sight me Yonder is a House — but where?

No, they must not enter there.
To the Caves, and to the Brooks,
To the Clouds of Heaven she looks;
She is speechless, but her eyes
Pray in ghostly agonies.
Blissful Mary, Mother mild,
Maid and Mother undefiled,
Save a Mother and her Child !

“Now who is he that bounds with joy On Carrock's side, a Shepherd Boy ? No thoughts bath he but thoughts that pass Light as the wind along the grass. Can this be lie who hither came In secret, like a smothered flame ! O'er whom such thankful tears were shed For shelter and a poor Man's bread! God loves the Child; and God hath willed That those dear words should be fulfilled, The Lady's words, when forced away The last she to her Babe did say, "My own, my own, thy Fellow-guest I may not be; but rest thee, rest, For lowly Shepherd's life is best!'

How beautiful! yet none knows why

This ever-graceful change,
Renewed — renewed incessantly –

Within your quiet range.
Is it that ye with conscious skill

For mutual pleasure glide;
And sometimes, not without your will

Are dwarfed, or magnified ?

(als at some moment might not be un felt

Among the bowers of paradise itself)
2. T'he budding rose above the rose full blown.
be the What Temper at the prospect did not wake
pret. To happiness unthought of? The inert

Were roused, and lively Nature rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
The playfellows of fancy, who had made

Al powers of swiftness, subtilty and strength
Fl. Their ministers, — who in lordly wise had stirred

Among the grandest objects of the sense,
W And dealt with whatsoever they found there

As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;- they, too, who of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Ikad fitted their own thoughts, schemers more inild, met bot And in the region of their peaceful selves;

Now was it that both found, the Meek and Lofty fit Dhid both find helpers to their heart's desire,

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean Fields,
Or some secreted Island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us, — the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!*

Fays — Genii of gigantic size —

And now, in twilight dim, Clustering like constellated Eyes

In wings of Cherubim, When they abate their fiery glare:

Whate'er your forms express, Whate'er ye seem, whate'er ye are,

All leads to gentleness.

Cold though your nature be, 't is pure;

Your birthright is a fence
From all that haughtier kinds endure

Through tyranny of sense.
Ah! not alone by colours bright

Are ye to Heaven allied,
When, like essential Forms of light,

Ye mingle, or divide.

GOLD AND SILVER FISHES,

IN A VASE.

For day-dreams soft as e'er beguiled

Day-thoughts while limbs repose ; For moonlight fascinations mild

Your gift, ere shutters close; Accept, mute Captives! thanks and praise ;

And may this tribute prove That gentle admirations raise

Delight resembling love.

LIBERTY.

The soaring Lark is blest as proud,

When at Heaven's gate she sings;
The roving Bee proclaims aloud

Her fight by vocal wings;
While Ye, in lasting durance pent,

Your silent lives employ
For something more than dull content

Though haply less than joy."
Yet might your glassy prison seem

A place where joy is known,
Where golden flash and silver gleam

Have meanings of their own;
While, high and low, and all about,

Your motions, glittering Elves !
Ye weave — no danger from without,

And peace among yourselves.
Type of a sunny human breast

Is your transparent Cell;
Where Fear is but a transient Guest,

No sullen humours dwell;
Where, sensitive of every ray

That smites this tiny sea,

(SEQUEL TO THE ABOVE.)

[ Addressed to a Friend; the Gold and Silver Fishes having been removed to a pool in the pleasure-ground of Rydal Mount.)

“ The liberty of a people consists in being governed by lazus which they have made for themselves, under whatever form i be of government, The liberty of a private man, in being mas ter of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his countrey. Of this latter we are here to discourse."-COWLEY.

Your scaly panoplies repay

The loan with usury.

THOSE breathing Tokens of your kind regard,
(Suspect not, Anna, that their fate is hard;
Not soon does aught to which mild fancies cling,
In lonely spots, become a slighted thing :)

See Note.

Those silent Inmates now no longer share,
Nor do they need, our hospitable care,
Removed in kindness from their glassy Cell
To the fresh waters of a living Well;
That spreads into an elfin pool opaque
Of which close boughs a glimmering mirror make,
On whose smooth breast with dimples light and small
The fly may settle, leaf or blossom fall.
– There swims, of blazing sun and beating shower
Fearless (but how obscured :) the golden Power,
That from his bauble prison used to cast
Gleams by the richest jewel unsurpast;
And near him, darkling like a sullen Gnome,
The silver Tenant of the crystal dome;
Dissevered both from all the mysteries
Of hue and altering shape that charmed all eyes.
They pined, perhaps, they languished while they shone;
And, if not so, what matters beauty gone
And admiration lost, by change of place
That brings to the inward Creature no disgrace?
But if the change restore his birthright, then,
Whate'er the difference, boundless is the gain.
Who can divine what impulses from God
Reach the caged Lark, within a town-abode,
From his poor inch or two of daisied sod?
O yield him back his privilege: No sea
Swells like the bosom of a man set free ;
A wilderness is rich with liberty.
Roll on, ye spouting Whales, who die or keep
Your independence in the fathomless Deep !
Spread, tiny Nautilus, the living sail;
Dive, at thy choice, or brave the freshening gale!
If unreproved the ambitious Eagle mount
Sunward to seek the daylight in its fount,
Bays, gulfs, and Ocean's Indian width, shall be,
Till the world perishes, a field for thee!

While musing here I sit in shadow cool, And watch these mute Companions, in the pool, Among reflected boughs of leafy trees, By glimpses caught—disporting at their ease— Enlivened, braced, by hardy luxuries, I ask what warrant fixed them (like a spell Of witchcraft fixed them) in the crystal Cell; To wheel with languid motion round and round, Beautiful, yet in a mournful durance bound. Their peace, perhaps, our lightest footfall marred; On their quick sense our sweetest music jarred; And whither could they dart, if seized with fear ! No sheltering stone, no tangled root was near. When fire or taper ceased to cheer the room They wore away the night in starless gloom And, when the sun first dawned upon the streams, How faint their portion of his vital beams! Thus, and unable to complain, they fared, While not one joy of ours by them was shared.

Which Horace needed for his spirit's health;
Sighed for, in heart and genius, overcome
By noise, and strife, and questions wearisome,
And the vain splendours of Imperial Rome!
Let easy mirth his social hours inspire,
And fiction animate his sportive lyre,
Attuned to verse that crowning light Distress
With garlands cheats her into happiness;
Give me the humblest note of those sad strains
Drawn forth by pressure of his gilded chains,
As a chance sunbeam from his memory fell
Upon the Sabine Farm he loved so well;
Or when the prattle of Bandusia's spring
Haunted his ear—he only listening–
He proud to please, above all rivals, fit
To win the palm of gaiety and wit:
He, doubt not, with involuntary dread,
Shrinking from each new favour to be shed,
By the World's Ruler, on his honoured head!

In a deep vision's intellectual scene, Such earnest longings and regrets as keen Depressed the melancholy Cowley, laid Under a fancied yew-tree's luckless shade;