That errand-bound 'Prentice was passing in hasteWhat matter! he's caught—and his time runs to wasteThe News-man is stopped, though he stops on the fret, And the half-breathless Lamp-lighter he's in the net!

The Porter sits down on the weight which he bore;
The Lass with her barrow wheels hither her store;-
If a Thief could be here he might pilfer at ease;
She sees the Musician, 'tis all that she sees!

He stands, back'd by the Wall;-he abates not his din;
His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in,
From the Old and the Young, from the Poorest; and there!
The one-pennied Boy has his penny to spare.

O blest are the Hearers, and proud be the Hand
Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a Band;
I am glad for him, blind as he is!—all the while
If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile.

That tall Man, a Giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight;
Can he keep himself still, if he would? oh, not he!
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.

There's a Cripple who leans on his Crutch; like a Tower
That long has lean'd forward, leans hour after hour!—
A Mother, whose Spirit in fetters is bound,

While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.

Now, Coaches and Chariots, roar on like a stream; Here are twenty souls happy as Souls in a dream : They are deaf to your murmurs-they care not for you, Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue!

XVI.

STEPPING WESTWARD.

While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sun-set, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What you are stepping westward?"

"What you are stepping westward?”—“ Yea.” -Twould be a wildish destiny,

If we, who thus together roam

In a strange Land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a Sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seem'd to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:

I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native Lake:
The salutation had to me

The very sound of courtesy:.

Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought.

A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.

XVII.

GLEN-ALMAIN,

OR THE

NARROW GLEN.

In this still place, remote from men,
Sleeps Ossian, in the NARROW GLEN;
In this still place, where murmurs on
But one meek Streamlet, only one :
He sang of battles, and the breath

Of stormy war, and violent death;

And should, methinks, when all was past,

Have rightfully been laid at last

Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent

As by a spirit turbulent;

Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,

And every thing unreconciled;

In some complaining, dim retreat,

For fear and melancholy meet;

But this is calm; there cannot be

A more entire tranquillity.