VI.

THE MOTHER'S RETURN.

By the same.

A MONTH, Sweet Little-ones, is passed

Since

your

dear Mother went away,

And she to-morrow will return;

To-morrow is the happy day.

O blessed tidings! thought of joy!
The eldest heard with steady glee;
Silent he stood; then laughed amain, -
And shouted, "Mother, come to me !"

Louder and louder did he shout,
With witless hope to bring her near;
"Nay, patience! patience, little boy!
Your tender mother cannot hear."

I told of hills, and far-off towns,
And long, long vales to travel through;
He listens, puzzled, sore perplexed,
But he submits; what can he do?

No strife disturbs his Sister's breast;
She wars not with the mystery
Of time and distance, night and day,
The bonds of our humanity.

Her joy is like an instinct, joy
Of kitten, bird, or summer fly;

She dances, runs without an aim,
She chatters in her ecstasy.

the note,

Her Brother now takes up
And echoes back his Sister's glee;
They hug the Infant in my arms,
As if to force his sympathy.

Then, settling into fond discourse,
We rested in the garden bower;
While sweetly shone the evening sun
In his departing hour.

We told o'er all that we had done,
Our rambles by the swift brook's side
Far as the willow-skirted pool,
Where two fair swans together glide.

We talked of change, of winter gone,
Of green leaves on the hawthorn spray,
Of birds that build their nests and sing,
And "all since Mother went away!"

To her these tales they will repeat,
To her our new-born tribes will show,
The goslings green, the ass's colt,
The lambs that in the meadow go.

But, see, the evening Star comes forth! To bed the Children must depart; A moment's heaviness they feel,

A sadness at the heart:

They run up stairs in gamesome race;
I, too, infected by their mood,

I could have joined the wanton chase.

Five minutes past — and, O the change!
Asleep upon their beds they lie;
Their busy limbs in perfect rest,

And closed the sparkling eye.

VII.

LUCY GRAY;

OR, SOLITUDE.

OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed 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!

Yo u 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 snapped 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, up like smoke.

That rises

The storm came on before its time:

She wandered up and down;

And many a hill did Lucy climb;

But never reached the town.