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And brid-maids singing are; And hark the little vesper-bell Which biddeth me to prayer.

O wedding-guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea :
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast, "Tis sweeter far to me

To walk together to the Kirk

With a goodly company :

To walk together to the Kirk
And altogether pray,

While each to his great father bends, and babes, and loving friends, And youths, and maidens gay.

Old men,

Farewell, farewell! But this I tell

To thee, thou wedding-guest! He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small :
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went, like one that hath been stunned

And is of sense forlorn :

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE.

A NARRATION IN DRAMATIC BLANK VERSE.

But that entrance, Mother!

FOSTER-MOTHER.

Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale

No one.

MARIA.

FOSTER MOTHER.

My husband's father told it me,

Poor old Leoni !—Angels rest his soul !

He was a woodman, and could fell and saw

With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel;
Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree,
He found a baby wrapt in mosses lined

With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home
And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost.

A pretty boy, but most unteachable-

And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,

And never learnt a prayer nor told a head,

But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,

And whistled, as he were a bird himself:
And all the Autumn 'twas his only play

To gather seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them,
With earth and water, on the stumps of trees.

A friar, who sought for simples in the wood,

A grey-haired man-he loved this little boy,

The boy loved him—and, when the friar taught him, He soon could write with the pen; and from that time Lived chiefly at the convent or the castle.

So he became a very learned youth.

But, Oh! poor wretch-he read, and read, and read,
Till his brain turned-and ere his twentieth year

He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
With holy men, nor in a holy place-

But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him.
And once, as by the north side of the chapel
They stood together, chained in deep discourse,
The earth heaved under them with such a groan,
That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen
Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened ;
A fever seized him, and he made confession

Of all the heretical and lawless talk

Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized
And cast into that cell. My husband's father
Sobbed like a child-it almost broke his heart:
And once as he was working near the cell
He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's
Who sang a doleful song about green fields,
How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,
To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
And wander up and down at liberty.
Leoni doted on the youth, and now

His love grew desperate; and defying death,
He made that cunning entrance I described,
And the young man escaped.

MARIA

'Tis a sweet tale

And what became of him?

FOSTER MOTHER.

He went on ship-board,

With those bold voyagers who made discovery
Of golden lands. Leoni's younger brother
Went likewise; and when he returned to Spain,
He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,
Soon after they arrived in that new world,
In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat,
And, all alone, set sail by silent moonlight
Up a great river, great as any sea,

And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis supposed
He lived and died among the savage men.

LINES

ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND, IN ANSWER TO A MELANCHOLY LETTER.

Away, those cloudy looks, that lab'ring sigh,

The peevish offspring of a sickly hour!

Nor meanly thus complain of Fortune's pow'r, When the blind gamester throws a luckless die.

Yon setting sun flashes a mournful gleam

Behind those broken clouds, his stormy train;
To-morrow shall the many colour'd main
In brightness roll beneath his orient beam!

Wild, as th' Autumnal gust, the hand of Time
Flies o'er his mystic lyre: in shadowy dance
Th' alternate groups of joy and grief advance
Responsive to his varying strains sublime!

Bears on its wing each hour a load of fate.
The swain, who, lull'd by Seine's mild murmurs, led
His weary oxen to their nightly shed,

To-day may rule a tempest-troubled state.

Nor shall not Fortune, with a vengeful smile,
Survey the sanguinary despot's might,

And haply hurl the pageant from his height,
Unwept, to wander in some savage isle.

There shiv'ring sad, beneath the tempest's frown,
Round his tir'd limbs to wrap the purple vest;
And mix'd with nails and beads, an equal jest!
Barter for food, the jewels of his crown.

LINES

WRITTEN AFTER A WALK BEFORE SUPPER.

Tho' much averse, dear Jack, to flicker,
To find a likeness for friend V―ker,
I've made, thro' earth, and air, and sea,
A voyage of discovery!

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