I murmur under moon and stärş
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bärṣ;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may gō,

But I go on for ever.

Tennyson.

THE LITTLE SEA-SHELL.

See what a lovely shell,

Smâll and pure aș a pearl,

Lying close to my foot,

Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well

With delicate spire and whorl,

How exquisitely minūte,

A miracle of deṣign!

The tiny cell is forlorn,

Void of the little living will
That made it stîr on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Through his dim wâter-world?

Slight, to be crusht with a tap
Of my finger-nail on the sand,
Small, but a work divine,
Frail, but of force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap
The three-deckers oaken spine
Athwart the ledges of rock.

Tennyson.

LUCY GRAY.

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crost the wild,

I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

Nō māte, nō comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,

-The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human dōor!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,

The hāre upon the green;

But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never mōre bē seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night-
You to the town must gō;

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 rais'd his hook,
And snapt 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 strōke

Her feet disperse the powdery snōw,
That rises up like smōke.

The storm came on befōre its time :
She wander'd up and down;

And many a hill did Lucy climb:
But never reacht the town.

The wretched parents âll that night

Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight

To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood

That overlookt the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood, A furlong from their door.

They wept-and, turning homeward, cried,

66

In heaven wē âll shall meet;"

-When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They trackt the footmärks smâll;

And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone-wâll;

And then an ōpen field they crost :
The märks were still the same;

They trackt them on, nor ever lost ;

And to the bridge they came.

They follow'd from the snowy bank
Thōṣe footmärks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;

And further there were none!

-Yet some maintain that to this day

She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray

Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

Wordsworth.

FIDELITY.

A bärking sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;

He hâlts and searches with his eyes
Among the scatter'd rocks:

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.

The Dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shỹ;
With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;

Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;

What is the creature doing here?

It was a cōve, a huge reċess,

That keeps, till June, December's snōw;

A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tärn* below!

* Tarn, a small lake or pool of water.