And then, what limbs those feats have left To poor old Simon Lee !

He has no son, he has no child;

His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,

Upon the village common.

Old Ruth works out of doors with him,
And does what Simon cannot do ;
For she, not over stout of limb

Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
Alas! 'tis very little, all

Which they can do between them.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.

This scrap of land he from the heath
Inclosed when he was stronger;
But what avails the land to them,
Which they can till no longer?

Few months of life has he in store,
As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.

My gentle reader, I perceive
How patiently you've waited,
And I'm afraid that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle reader! you would find

A tale in everything.

What more I have to say is short,
I hope you'll kindly take it:
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer day I chanced to see
This old man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour,
That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

"You're overtasked," good Simon Lee, Give me your tool," to him I said;

And, at the word, rightly gladly he
Received my proffered aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor old man so long
And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning,

Alas! the gratitude of men
Has oft'ner left me mourning.

XIV.

ANDREW JONES.

"I HATE that Andrew Jones, he'll breed
His children up to waste und pillage:
I wish the press-gang or the drum
Would, with its rattling music, come
And sweep him from the village."

I said not this because he loves
Through the long day to swear and tipple;
But for the poor dear sake of one
To whom a foul deed he has done,
A friendless man, a travelling cripple.

For this poor crawling, helpless wretch
Some horseman, who was passing by,
A penny on the ground had thrown;
But the poor cripple was alone,
And could not stoop-no help was nigh.

Inch-thick the dust lay on the ground,
For it had long been droughty weather:
So with his staff the cripple wrought
Among the dust, till he had brought
The halfpennies together.

It chanced that Andrew passed that way
Just at the time; and there he found
The cripple in the mid-day heat
Standing alone, and at his feet
He saw the penny on the ground.

He stooped and took the penny up:
And when the cripple nearer drew,

Quoth Andrew: "Under half a crown,
What a man finds is all his own;
And so, my friend, good day to you."

And hence, I say, that Andrew's boys
Will all be trained to waste and pillage:
And wished the press-gang or the drum
Would, with its rattling music, come
And sweep him from the village.

XV.

In the school of - 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 one of those names the Author wrote the following lines.

Ir 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—
Cypher 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?

XVI.

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 grey;

As blithe a man as you could see
On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,

And by the streaming 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 church-yard 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
Ere 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 his bough
Of wilding in his hand.

XVII.

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! let us try to 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 hali-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made!"