I, to her Lamb that little Maid might sing.
“What ails thee, Young One? What? Why pull so at thy cord?
Is it not well with thee? Well both for bed and board?
Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be;
Rest, little Young One, rest; what is’t that aileth thee?
“What is it thou wouldst seek? What is wanting to thy heart?
Thy limbs are they not strong? And beautiful thou art:
This grass is tender grass; these flowers they have no peers;
And that green corn all day is rustling in thy ears!
“If the Sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy woollen chain,
This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst gain;
For rain and mountain storms! the like thou need’st not fear—
The rain and storm are things which scarcely can come here.
“Rest, little Young One, rest; thou hast forgot the day
When my Father found thee first in places far away;
Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned by none;
And thy mother from thy side for evermore was gone.
“He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought thee home:
A blessed day for thee! then whither wouldst thou roam?
A faithful Nurse thou hast, the Dam that did thee yean
Upon the mountain tops no kinder could have been.
“Thou know’st that twice a day I have brought thee in this Can
Fresh water from the brook as clear as ever ran:
And twice in the day when the ground is wet with dew
I bring thee draughts of milk, warm milk it is and new.
“Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they are now,
Then I’ll yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the plough;
My Playmate thou shalt be; and when the wind is cold
Our hearth shall be thy bed, our house shall be thy fold.
“It will not, will not rest!—poor Creature, can it be
That ’tis thy mother’s heart which is working so in thee?
Things that I know not of belike to thee are dear,
And dreams of things which thou canst neither see nor hear.
“Alas, the mountain tops that look so green and fair!
I’ve heard of fearful winds and darkness that come there;
The little Brooks that seem all pastime and all play,
When they are angry, roar like Lions for their prey.
“Here thou need’st not dread the raven in the sky;
Night and day thou art safe—our cottage is hard by.
Why bleat so after me? Why pull so at thy chain?
Sleep—and at break of day I will come to thee again!”
—As homeward through the lane I went with lazy feet,
This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat;
And it seemed, as I retraced the ballad line by line,
That but half of it was hers, and one half of it was mine.
Again, and once again did I repeat the song;
“Nay” said I, “more than half to the Damsel must belong,
For she looked with such a look, and she spake with such a tone,
That I almost received her heart into my own.”
A fig for your languages, German and Norse!
Let me have the song of the Kettle;
And the tongs and the poker, instead of that Horse
That gallops away with such fury and force
On this dreary dull plate of black metal.
Our earth is no doubt made of excellent stuff;
But her pulses beat slower and slower:
The weather in Forty was cutting and rough,
And then, as Heaven knows, the Glass stood low enough;
And now it is four degrees lower.
Here’s a Fly, a disconsolate creature, perhaps
A child of the field, or the grove;
And, sorrow for him! this dull treacherous heat
Has seduced the poor fool from his winter retreat,
And he creeps to the edge of my stove.
Alas! how he fumbles about the domains
Which this comfortless oven environ!
He cannot find out in what track he must crawl,
Now back to the tiles, and now back to the wall,
And now on the brink of the iron.
Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemazed;
The best of his skill he has tried;
His feelers methinks I can see him put forth
To the East and the West, and the South and the North;
But he finds neither Guide-post nor Guide.
See! his spindles sink under him, foot, leg and thigh;
His eyesight and hearing are lost;
Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws;
And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze
Are glued to his sides by the frost.
No Brother, no Friend has he near him—while I
Can draw warmth from the cheek of my Love;
As blest and as glad in this desolate gloom,
As if green summer grass were the floor of my room,
And woodbines were hanging above.
Yet, God is my witness, thou small helpless Thing!
Thy life I would gladly sustain
Till summer comes up from the South, and with crowds
Of thy brethren a march thou shouldst sound through the clouds,
And back to the forests again.
The Childless Father
“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 gray, scarlet and green,
On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen;
With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow,
The Girls on the hills made a holiday show.
The bason of box-wood,20 just six months before,
Had stood on the table at Timothy’s door;
A Coffin through Timothy’s threshold had passed;
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,
“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.
