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Thou wanderest the wide world about,
Unchecked by pride or scrupulous doubt,
With friends to greet thee, or without,
Yet pleased and willing;

Meek, yielding to the occasion's call,
And all things suffering from all,

Thy function apostolical

In peace fulfilling.

XII.

TO A SKY-LARK.

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;
Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing

With all the heavens about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary, And to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;

Up with me, up with me, high and high,
To thy banqueting-place in the sky!

Joyous as Morning,

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest, for thy love and thy rest:

And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth

To be such a Traveller as I.

Happy, happy Liver!

With a soul as strong as a mountain River,
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!

Hearing thee, or else some other,
As merry a Brother,

I on the earth will go plodding on,

By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done.

XIII.

TO A SEXTON.

LET thy wheel-barrow alone—
Wherefore, Sexton, piling still

In thy Bone-house bone on bone?

"Tis already like a hill

In a field of battle made,

Where three thousand skulls are laid.

These died in peace each with the other,

Father, Sister, Friend, and Brother.

Mark the spot to which I point!

From this platform eight feet square

Take not even a finger-joint:

Andrew's whole fire-side is there.

Here, alone, before thine eyes,

Simon's sickly Daughter lies,

From weakness, now, and pain defended,

Whom he twenty winters tended.

Look but at the gardener's pride

How he glories, when he sees.

Roses, Lilies, side by side,

Violets in families!

By the heart of Man, his tears,

By his hopes and by his fears,

Thou, old Grey-beard! art the Warden

Of a far superior garden.

Thus then, each to other dear,

Let them all in quiet lie,

Andrew there and Susan here,
Neighbours in mortality.

And, should I live through sun and rain
Seven widowed years without my Jane,
O Sexton, do not then remove her,

Let one grave hold the Lov'd and Lover!

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