The same whom in my School-boy days I listen'd to; that Cry

Which made me look a thousand ways; In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove

Through woods and on the green ;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still long'd for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain

And listen, till I do beget

That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace

Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for Thee!

III.

A NIGHT-PIECE.

-THE Sky is overcast

With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,

A dull, contracted circle, yielding light

So feebly spread that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground, from rock, plant, tree, or tower.

At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam

Startles the pensive traveller as he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up the clouds are split
Asunder, and above his head he sees

The clear moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss

Drive as she drives;-how fast they wheel away,

Yet vanish not! - the wind is in the tree,

But they are silent;-still they roll along

Immeasureably distant; and the vault,

Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,

Still deepens its unfathomable depth.

At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.

IV.

YEW-TREES.

THERE is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,
Not loth to furnish weapons for the Bands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched

To Scotland's Heaths; or Those that crossed the Sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree!-a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks!-and each particular trunk a growth

Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved,-
Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the prophane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide-Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight-Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow, there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.