The fair girl looked into my face, "Three years ago, unknown to us, "That winter was a weary time, For we knew not in what ship he sailed, And day and night the loud wild winds "My mother lay upon her bed, Her spirit sorely tossed With dismal thoughts of storm and wreck Upon some savage coast; But morn and eve we prayed to Heaven That he might not be lost. "And when the pleasant spring came on, And fields again were green, He sent a letter full of news, "The tidings that came next were from A sailor old and gray, Who saw his ship at anchor lie In the harbour at Bombay; But he said my brother pined for home, "Again he wrote a letter long, And soon, and very soon, he said, "I watched and watched, but I knew not then It would be all in vain ; For very sick he lay the while, "And now I watch-for we have heard That he is on his way, And the letter said, in very truth, He would be here to-day. Oh! there's no bird that singeth now Could tempt me hence away?" That self-same eve I wandered down Just as a little boat came in, With people to the land; I knew him by his dark-blue eyes, "There's nae place like our ain dear hame To be met wi' onywhere!" Mary Howitt. WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? THY neighbour? It is he whom thou Whose aching heart and burning brow Thy neighbour? 'Tis the fainting poor, Whom hunger sends from door to door- Thy neighbour? "Tis that weary man, Whene'er thou meet'st a human form Oh, pass not, pass not heedless by; LUCY GRAY; OR, SOLITUDE. OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray; No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew; -The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door! You yet may spy the fawn at play, But the sweet face of Lucy Gray "To-night will be a stormy night- “That, father, will I gladly do! The minster-clock has just struck two, At this the father raised his hook He plied his work;-and Lucy took Not blither is the mountain roe; Her feet disperse the powdery snow, The storm came on before its time: She wandered up and down: And many a hill did Lucy climb; But never reached the town. The wretched parents all that night, But there was neither sound nor sight, At daybreak on a hill they stood And thence they saw the bridge of wood, And, turning homeward, now they cried, "In heaven we all shall meet!" -When in the snow the mother spied Then downward from the steep hill's edge, And through the broken hawthorn hedge, And then an open field they crossed: They tracked them on, nor ever lost; They followed from the snowy bank And further there were none! -Yet some maintain that to this day That you may see sweet Lucy Gray O'er rough and smooth she trips along, And never looks behind; And sings a solitary song Wordsworth, |