LUCY GRAY

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And when I cross'd the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,

The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;

But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

'To-night will be a stormy night-
You to the town must go ;

And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your mother through the snow.'

That, Father! will I gladly do:

'Tis scarcely afternoon

The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon!'

At this the father raised his hook,
And snapp'd a faggot-band;

He plied his work;-and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke

Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:
She wander'd up and down;

And many a hill did Lucy climb :
But never reach'd the town.

The wretched parents all that night

Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlook'd the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood
A furlong from their door.

They wept-and, turning homeward, cried 'In heaven we all shall meet!'

-When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They track'd the footmarks small;

And through the broken hawthorn hedge,

And by the long stone-wall:

And then an open field they cross'd:
The marks were still the same;

They track'd them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came :

They follow'd from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none !

-Yet some maintain that to this day.
She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.

W. Wordsworth

4

TO MARY

If I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;

But I forgot, when by thy side,

That thou couldst mortal be:
It never through my mind had past
The time would e'er be o'er,
And I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more!

Wolfe resembled Keats, not only in his early death by consumption and the fluent freshness of his poetical style, but in beauty of character :-brave, ten

der, energetic, unselfish, modest. Is it fanciful to find some reflex of these qualities in the Burial and Mary? Out of the abundance of the heart. .-F. T. P.

And where thy smiles have been.
While e'en thy chill, bleak corse I have,
Thou seemest still mine own;
But there I lay thee in thy grave-
And I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;

And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart,
In thinking too of thee:

Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne'er seen before,

As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore!

5

AGNES

I saw her in childhood-
A bright, gentle thing,
Like the dawn of the morn,
Or the dews of the spring.

This book has not a few poems of greater power and more perfect execution than Agnes and the extract which we have ventur ed to make from the deephearted author's Sad Thoughts

C. Wolfe

are more

(No. 2). But none emphatically marked by the note of exquisiteness.-F. T. P.

Lyte is best known as the author of the hymn "Abide with me ! fast falls the eventide."

The daisies and hare-bells
Her playmates all day;
Herself as light-hearted
And artless as they.
I saw her again-

A fair girl of eighteen,
Fresh glittering with graces

Of mind and of mien.
Her speech was all music;
Like moonlight she shone;
The envy of many,
The glory of one.

Years, years fleeted over-
I stood at her foot:
The bud had grown blossom,
The blossom was fruit.

A dignified mother,

Her infant she bore;
And look'd, I thought, fairer
Than ever before.

I saw her once more

'Twas the day that she died;
Heaven's light was around her,
And God at her side;
No wants to distress her,

No fears to appal—

O then, I felt, then

She was fairest of all!

6

IN MEMORIAM

A child's a plaything for an hour;
Its pretty tricks we try

For that or for a longer space,-
Then tire, and lay it by.

H. F. Lyte