LINES written at a small distance from my house, and sent by my little boy to the person to whom they are addressed. It is the first mild day of March: Each minute sweeter than before, The red-breast sings from the tall larch There is a blessing in the air, Which seems a sense of joy to yield To the bare trees, and mountains bare, My Sister! ('tis a wish of mine) Now that our morning meal is done, Make haste, your morning task resign; Come forth and feel the sun. Edward will come with you, and pray, Put on with speed your woodland dress, And bring no book, for this one day We'll give to idleness. No joyless forms shall regulate Our living Calendar: We from to-day, my friend, will date The opening of the year. Love, now an universal birth, From heart to heart is stealing, From earth to man, from man to earth, —It is the hour of feeling. One moment now may give us more Than fifty years of reason; Our minds shall drink at every pore The spirit of the season. Some silent laws our hearts may make, Which they shall long obey; We for the year to come may take Our temper from to-day. And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above; We'll frame the measure of our souls, They shall be tuned to love. Then come, my sister! come, I pray, With speed put on your woodland dress, And bring no book; for this one day We'll give to idleness. G SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN, with an incident in which he was concerned. In the sweet shire of Cardigan, Of years he has upon his back, He say's he is three score and ten, But others say he's eighty. A long blue livery-coat has he, Yet, meet him where you will, you see Full five and twenty years he lived A running huntsman merry'; And, though he has but one eye left, His cheek is like a cherry. No man like him the horn could sound, To say the least, four counties round His master's dead, and no one now Dwells in the hall of Ivor; Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead; |