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WORDSWORTH.

LUCY.

Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said "A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown;

This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me,
The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power,

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the Fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs ;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm,
Of mute insensate things.

The floating Clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see,

Even in the motions of the Storm

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form By silent sympathy.

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place,

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give,
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell."

Thus Nature spake-The work was doneHow soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm, and quiet scene ;

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

TO A LADY.

Dear Child of Nature, let them rail!
-There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold,

Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shall see Thy own delightful days, and be

A light to young and old.

There healthy as a shepherd-boy,
And treading among flowers of joy,
That at no season fade,

Thou, while thy Babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing

A Woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee when gray hairs are nigh
A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,

Shall lead thee to thy grave.

SCOTT.

THE LAST MINSTREL.

THE way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses gray, Seemed to have known a better day; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy; The last of all the Bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry. For, well ay! their date was fled, His tuneful brethren all were dead; And he, neglected and oppressed, Wished to be with them, and at rest. No more on prancing palfrey borne, He carolled, light as lark at morn, No longer courted and caressed, High placed in hall, a welcome guest, He poured, to lord and lady gay, The unpremeditated lay:

Old times were changed, old manners gone,
A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne;
The bigots of the iron time,

Had called his harmless art a crime,
A wandering Harper, scorned and poor,
He begged his bread from door to door;
And tuned to please a peasant's ear,
The harp, a king had loved to hear.

He passed where Newark's stately tower
Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower:
The Minstrel gazed with wistful eye-
No humbler resting-place was nigh.
With hesitating step, at last,

The embattled portal-arch he passed,
Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft rolled back the tide of war,
But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor.

The duchess marked his weary pace,
His timid mein, and reverend face,
And bade her page the menials tell,
That they should tend the old man well;
For she had known adversity,
Though born in such a high degree;
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride:
And he began to talk anon,

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