Long hath the light of knowledge and of rest
Thence banished sin, and suffering there beguiled;
That loving angel, Innocence, hath kissed
Frequent the cheek of every rosy child,

And leads them dancing on along the pathless wild.

Ah me! when wandering at sweet eventide,
'Mid the fair vales of England, as they lay,

Of their own beauty touched with stately pride,
Encircled with the diadem of May!

Here palace-domes, there dwellings light and gay,
In groves embosomed, or with rosy showers,
Bride-like adorned in beautiful array,

Where, charmed by fragrance, the delighted Hours, Seemed, as the sun went down, still lingering 'mid the flowers.

How hath that gorgeous vision in the air

(Light, music, fragrance, cottage, tower, and dome),
Melted to nothing! Thou art smiling there,

Most sweetly smiling through the dewy gloom,
Just as Eve's star and crescent-moon illume
Heaven's arch, that folds thee in the hush of night,
Wild Hamlet! In thy quiet's inner room

The wanderer sits, and wonders in delight

On what kind angel's wing hath been his homeward flight.

MARY.

THREE days before my Mary's death, We walked by Grassmere shore; "Sweet Lake!" she said with faltering breath, "I ne'er shall see thee more!"

Then turning round her languid head,
She looked me in the face,

And whispered, "When thy friend is dead,
Remember this lone place."

Vainly I struggled at a smile,
That did my fears betray;

It seemed that on our darling isle
Foreboding darkness lay.

My Mary's words were words of truth;

None now behold the Maid;

Amid the tears of age and youth,

She in her grave was laid.

Long days, long nights, I ween, were past

Ere ceased her funeral knell ;

But to the spot I went at last

Where she had breathed "farewell!"

Methought, I saw the phantom stand
Beside the peaceful wave;

I felt the pressure of her hand-
Then looked towards her grave.

Fair, fair beneath the evening sky
The quiet churchyard lay :
The tall pine-grove most solemnly
Hung mute above her clay.

Dearly she loved their arching spread,
Their music wild and sweet,

And, as she wished on her deathbed,
Was buried at their feet.

Around her grave a beauteous fence
Of wild-flowers shed their breath,
Smiling like infant innocence

Within the gloom of death.

Such flowers from bank of mountain brook

At eve we used to bring,

When every little mossy nook

Betrayed returning Spring.

Oft had I fixed the simple wreath

Upon her virgin breast;

But now such flowers as formed it, breathe Around her bed of rest.

Yet all within my silent soul,

As the hushed air was calm; The natural tears that slowly stole, Assuaged my grief like balm.

The air that seemed so thick and dull
For months unto my eye;

Ah me! how bright and beautiful
It floated on the sky!

A trance of high and solemn bliss
From purest ether came ;
'Mid such a heavenly scene as this,
Death is an empty name!

The memory of the past returned
Like music to my heart,—
It seemed that causelessly I mourned,
When we were told to part.

"God's mercy," to myself I said,
"To both our souls is given-
To me, sojourning on earth's shade,
To her-a Saint in Heaven!"

SOLITUDE.

O VALE of visionary rest!
-Hushed as the grave it lies

With heaving banks of tenderest green
Yet brightly, happily serene,

As cloud-vale of the sleepy west
Reposing on the skies.

Its reigning spirit may not vary—
What change can seasons bring
Unto so sweet, so calm a spot,
Where every loud and restless thing
Is like a far-off dream forgot?
Mild, gentle, mournful, solitary,
As if it aye were spring,

And Nature loved to witness here

The still joys of the infant year,

'Mid flowers and music wandering glad,
For ever happy, yet for ever sad.
This little world how still and lone
With that horizon of its own!

And, when in silence falls the night,
With its own moon how purely bright!
No shepherd's cot is here-no shieling
Its verdant roof through trees revealing—
No branchy covert like a nest,

Where the weary woodmen rest,

And their jocund carols sing

O'er the fallen forest-king.

Inviolate by human hand

The fragrant white-stemmed birch-trees stand,

With many a green and sunny glade

'Mid their embowering murmurs made

By gradual soft decay

Where stealing to that little lawn

From secret haunt and half-afraid,

The doe, in mute affection gay,

At close of eve leads forth her fawn
Amid the flowers to play.

And in that dell's soft bosom, lo!
Where smileth up a cheerful glow
Of water pure as air,

A tarn by two small streamlets spread
In beauty o'er its waveless bed,
Reflecting in that heaven so still
The birch-grove mid-way up the hill,
And summits green and bare.

How lone! beneath its veil of dew
That morning's rosy fingers drew,
Seldom shepherd's foot hath prest
One primrose in its sunny rest.
The sheep at distance from the spring
May here her lambkins chance to bring,
Sporting with their shadows airy,
Each like tiny Water-fairy

Imaged in the lucid lake!

The hive-bee here doth sometimes make
Music, whose sweet murmurings tell
Of his sheltered straw-roofed cell
Standing 'mid some garden gay,
Near a cottage far away.
By the lake-side, on a stone
Stands the heron all alone,

Still as any lifeless thing!
Slowly moves his laggard wing,

And cloud-like floating with the gale

Leaves at last the quiet vale.