• Up, Timothy, up with your staff and away!
Not a soul in the village this morning will stay :
The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,
And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.'
Of coats and of jackets, grey, scarlet, and green,
On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen;
With their comely blue aprons and caps white as
The girls on the hills make a holiday show.
Fresh sprigs of green box-wood, not six months before,
Fill'd the funeral basin at Timothy's door;
A coffin through Timothy's threshold had past;
One Child did it bear, and that Child was his last.
Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray,
The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark! away!
Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut,
With a leisurely motion, the door of his hut.
Perhaps to himself at that moment he said;
6 The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead.'
But of this, in my ears, not a word did he speak ;
And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.
W. Wordsworth
II-THE FAIRY PRINCE'S ARRIVAL
A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt,
There rose a noise of striking clocks,
And feet that ran and doors that clapt,
And barking dogs, and crowing cocks;
A fuller light illumin'd all,
A breeze through all the garden swept, A sudden hubbub shook the hall,
And sixty feet the fountain leapt.
The hedge broke in, the banner blew,
The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd,
The fire shot up, the martin flew,
The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd,
The maid and page renew'd their strife,
The palace bang'd and buzz'd and clackt,
And all the long pent stream of life
Dash'd downward in a cataract.
And last with these the king awoke,
And in his chair himself uprear'd,
And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke,
'By holy rood, a royal beard!
How say you? we have slept, my lords.
My beard has grown into my lap.' The barons swore, with many words, 'Twas but an after-dinner's nap.
-dy,' return'd the king, ‘but still
y joints are something stiff or so.
Lord, and shall we pass the bill
mention'd half an hour ago?'
chancellor sedate and vain
à courteous words return'd reply:
dallied with his golden chain,
nd, smiling, put the question by.
AL SONG OF ILLYRIAN PEASANTS
! up! ye dames, ye lasses gay!
To the meadows trip away.
you must tend the flocks this morn,
1 scare the small birds from the corn.
Tot a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go
With lance and bow
hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.
ve the hearth and leave the house
To the cricket and the mouse:
d grannam out a sunny seat,
th babe and lambkin at her feet.
Not a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go
With lance' and bow
hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold,
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breath'd in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heav'd, and for ever were
still.
And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,
But through them there roll'd not the breath of his
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail,
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
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