'A basket on her head she bare;
Her brow was smooth and white:
To see a child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!

'No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripp'd with foot so free;
She seem'd as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

'There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;

I look'd at her, and look'd again :
And did not wish her mine!'

- Matthew is in his grave, yet now Methinks I see him stand

As at that moment, with a bough

Of wilding in his hand.

WE

W. Wordsworth

CCLXXXII

THE FOUNTAIN

A Conversation

E talk'd with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,

A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,

Beside a mossy seat;

And from the turf a fountain broke

And gurgled at our feet.

'Now, Matthew!' said I, 'let us match This water's pleasant tune

With some old border song, or catch
That suits a summer's noon.

'Or of the church-clock and the chimes

Sing here beneath the shade

That half-mad thing of witty rhymes

Which you last April made!'

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed

The spring beneath the tree;

And thus the dear old man replied,

The gray-hair'd man of glee :

'No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears, How merrily it goes!

'T will murmur on a thousand years

And flow as now it flows.

'And here, on this delightful day,

I cannot choose but think

How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.

'My eyes are dim with childish tears,

My heart is idly stirr'd,

For the same sound is in my ears

Which in those days I heard.

'Thus fares it still in our decay:

And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what Age takes away,

Than what it leaves behind.

'The blackbird amid leafy trees

The lark above the hill

Let loose their carols when they please, Are quiet when they will.

'With Nature never do they wage

A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age

Is beautiful and free:

'But we are press'd by heavy laws;

And often, glad no more,

We wear a face of joy, because

We have been glad of yore.

'If there be one who need bemoan

His kindred laid in earth,

The household hearts that were his own,

It is the man of mirth.

'My days, my friend, are almost gone,

My life has been approved,

And many love me ; but by none

Am I enough beloved.'

'Now both himself and me he wrongs,

The man who thus complains!

I live and sing my idle songs

Upon these happy plains:

'And Matthew, for thy children dead I'll be a son to thee !'

At this he grasp'd my hand and said, 'Alas! that cannot be.'

We rose up from the fountain-side;

And down the smooth descent

Of the green sheep-track did we glide;
And through the wood we went ;

And ere we came to Leonard's Rock
He sang those witty rhymes

About the crazy old church-clock,

And the bewilder'd chimes.

W. Wordsworth

T

CCLXXXIII

THE RIVER OF LIFE

'HE more we live, more brief appear

Our life's succeeding stages:

A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.

But as the care-worn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,

Ye Stars, that measure life to man,
Why seem your courses quicker?

When joys have lost their bloom and breath And life itself is vapid,

Why, as we reach the Falls of Death,

Feel we its tide more rapid?

It may be strange-yet who would change
Time's course to slower speeding,
When one by one our friends have gone
And left our bosoms bleeding?

Heaven gives our years of fading strength

Indemnifying fleetness;

And those of youth, a seeming length,

Proportion'd to their sweetness.

T. Campbell

F

CCLXXXIV

THE HUMAN SEASONS

OUR Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of Man :

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness - to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook :-

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
7. Keats