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Inch-thick the dust lay on the ground, For it had long been droughty weather: So with his staff the Cripple wrought Among the dust, till he had brought The halfpennies together.

It chanced that Andrew passed that way Just at the time; and there he found The Cripple in the mid-day heat Standing alone, and at his feet

He saw the penny on the ground.

He stooped and took the penny up:
And when the Cripple nearer drew,
Quoth Andrew, "Under half-a-crown,
What a man finds is all his own;
And so, my friend, good day to you."

And hence I say, that Andrew's boys Will all be trained to waste and pillage; And wished the press-gang or the drum Would, with its rattling music, come And sweep him from the village.

XV.

In the School of

is a Tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the Names of the several Persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the Founda ̄ tion of the School, with the Time at which they entered upon and quitted their Office. Opposite one of those Names the Author wrote the following Lines.

IF Nature, for a favourite Child
In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears

In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.

-When through this little wreck of fame,

Cypher and syllable! thine eye

Has travelled down to Matthew's name,

Pause with no common sympathy.

And, if a sleeping tear should wake,

Then be it neither checked nor stayed:
For Matthew a request I make

Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,

Is silent as a standing pool;

Far from the chimney's merry roar,

And murmur of the village school.

The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
Were tears of light, the dew of gladness.

Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up—

He felt with spirit so profound.

-Thou Soul of God's best earthly mould!

Thou happy Soul! and can it be

That these two words of glittering gold

Are all that must remain of thee?

XVI.

THE

TWO APRIL MORNINGS.

WE walked along, while bright and red

Uprose the morning sun;

And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said,

"The will of God be done!"

A village Schoolmaster was he,

With hair of glittering gray;

As blithe a man as you could see

On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,

And by the steaming rills,

We travelled merrily, to pass

A day among the hills.

"Our work," said I," was well begun;

Then, from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,

So sad a sigh has brought?".

A second time did Matthew stop;

And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,

To me he made reply:

"Yon cloud with that long purple cleft

Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this which I have left

Full thirty years behind.

"And just above yon slope of corn

Such colours, and no other,

Were in the sky, that April morn,

Of this the very brother.

"With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

And, coming to the church, stopped short

Beside my daughter's grave.

VOL. II.

K

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