TO THE CUCK00.-RETIREMENT.

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Sleepless, and soon the small birds' melodies

Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees ; And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.

Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay, And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth ;

So do not let me wear to-night away : Without thee, what is all the morning's wealth ?

Come, blessed barrier betwixt day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

Sonnet, to the Cuckoo.
Not the whole warbling grove in concert heard,

When sunshine follows shower, the breast can thrill

Like the first summons, Cuckoo, of thy bill,
With its twin notes inseparably paired.
The captive, 'mid damp vaults, unsunned, unaired,

Measuring the periods of his lonely doom,

That cry can reach ; and to the sick man's room
Sends gladness, by no languid smile declared.
The lordly eagle-race through hostile search

May perish ; time may come when never more

The wilderness shall hear the lion roar ;
But long as cock shall crow from household perch

To rouse the dawn, soft gales shall speed thy wing,
And thy erratic voice be faithful to the spring !

Sonnet. Retirement.

The stars are mansions built by Nature's hand;

The sun is peopled; and with spirits blest,

Say can the gentle moon be unpossest? Huge Ocean shews, within his yellow strand, A habitation marvellously planned

For life to occupy in love and rest.

All that we see is dome, or vault, or nest,
Or fort, erected at her sage command.
Is this a vernal thought? Even so, the spring

Gave it while cares were weighing on my heart,

'Mid song of birds and insects murmuring;

And while the youthful year's prolific art-
Of bud, leaf, blade, and flower—was fashioning
Abodes where self-disturbance hath no part.

The Sonnet.
Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room ;
And Hermits are contented with their cells,
And Students with their pensive citadels ;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells :
In truth, the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves no prison is ; and hence to me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

Lucy Gray.
OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray ;

And when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day

The solitary child.
No mate, no comrade Lucy knew ;

She dwelt on a wide moor,
The sweetest thing that ever grew

Beside a human door!
You yet may spy the fawn at play,

The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray

Will never more be seen.
“To-night will be a stormy night,

You to the town must go ;
And take a lantern, child, to light

Your mother through the snow.”

“ That, father, will I gladly do ;

'Tis scarcely afternoon, The minster-clock has just struck two,

And yonder is the moon.”

At this the father raised his hook,

And snapped a fagot-band ;
He plied his work ; and Lucy took

The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe :

With many a wanton stroke,
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,

That rises up like smoke.

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

Went shouting far and wide ;
But there was neither sound nor sight

To serve them for a guide.

At daybreak on a hill they stood

That overlooked the moor,
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,

A furlong from their door.

They wept, and turning homeward, cried,

“ In heaven we all shall meet;" When in the snow the mother spied

The print of Lucy's feet.

Half breathless, from the steep hill's edge

They tracked the footmarks small ;
And through the broken hawthorn-hedge,

And by the long stone-wall;

:

And then an open field they crossed :

The marks were still the same; They tracked them on, nor ever lost ;

And to the bridge they came. They followed from the

snowy

bank Those footmarks, one by one, Into the middle of the plank,

And further there were none !

Yet some maintain that to this day

She is a living child,
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray

Upon the lonesome wild.
O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind, And sings a solitary song.

That whistles in the wind.

The Longest Day. Let us quit the leafy arbour,

And the torrent murmuring by ; Sol has dropp’d into his harbour,

Weary of the open sky. Evening now unbinds the fetters

Fashioned by the glowing light; All that breathe are thankful debtors

To the harbinger of night. Yet by some grave thoughts attended,

Eve renews her calm career ;
For the day that now is ended

Is the longest of the year.
Laura ! sport, as now thou sportest,

On this platform, light and free; Take thy bliss, while longest, shortest,

Are indifferent to thee.

THE LONGEST DAY.

127

Who would check the happy feeling

That inspires the linnet's song? Who would stop the swallow wheeling

On her pinions swift and strong? Yet at this impressive season,

Words which tenderness can speak
From the truths of homely reason,

Might exalt the loveliest cheek ;
And while shades to shades succeeding

Steal the landscape from the sight,
I would urge this moral pleading,

Last forerunner of “Good night!" Summer ebbs ; each day that follows

Is a reflux from. on high, Tending to the darksome bollows

Where the frosts of winter lie. He who governs the creation,

In His providence assign'd
Such a gradual declination

To the life of human kind.
Yet we mark it not ;-fruits redden;

Fresh flowers blow, as flowers have blown ; And the heart is loath to deaden

Hopes that she so long hath known. Be thou wiser, youthful maiden ;

And when thy decline shall come,
Let not flowers or boughs fruit-laden

Hide the knowledge of thy doom.
Now, even now, ere wrapp'd in slumber,

Fix thine eyes upon the sea,
That absorbs time, space, and number;

Look towards eternity.
Follow thou the flowing river

On whose breast are thither borne All deceived and each deceiver,

Through the gates of night and morn;