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Still memory to a gray-haired man
That sweet child-face is showing.
Dear girl! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing!

He lives to learn, in life's hard school, How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and his loss, Like her, because they love him.

20

WE ARE SEVEN

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

-A simple child,

That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl:

She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,

And she was wildly clad:

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
-Her beauty made me glad.

"Sisters and brothers, little maid,

How many may you be?"

"How many? Seven in all," she said,

And wondering looked at me.

"And where are they? I pray you tell."
She answered, "Seven are we;

And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

"Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother."

"You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,

Yet ye are seven!—I pray you tell,
Sweet maid, how this may be."

Then did the little maid reply,
"Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree."

"You run about, my little maid, Your limbs they are alive;

If two are in the church-yard laid,

Then ye are only five."

"Their graves are green, they may be seen," The little maid replied,

"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,

And they are side by side.

"My stockings there I often knit,

My kerchief there I hem;

And there upon the ground I sit,

And sing a song to them.

"And often after sunset, sir,

When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

"The first that died was sister Jane;

In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

"So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.

"And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side."

"How many are you, then," said I,
"If they two are in heaven?"
Quick was the little maid's reply,
"O master! we are seven."

"But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!"

'Twas throwing words away; for still The little maid would have her will, And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

21

THE INCHCAPE ROCK1

ROBERT SOUTHEY

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,

The ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion;
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The Abbot of Aberbrothok

Had placed that Bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.

When the Rock was hid by the surge's swell,
The mariners heard the warning Bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

The Sun in heaven was shining gay;

All things were joyful on that day;

The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled round,
And there was joyance in their sound.

The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen,

A darker speck on the ocean green:
Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.

1. Inchcape Rock. A reef just off the coast of Scotland, near the Firth of Tay.

He felt the cheering power of spring;

It made him whistle, it made him sing:
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover's mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the Inchcape float:
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;

Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,

And he cut the Bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sunk the Bell with a gurgling sound;

The bubbles rose and burst around:

Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the Rock Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away;

He scoured the seas for many a day;

And now, grown rich with plundered store,

He steers his course for Scotland's shore.

So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the Sun on high:
The wind hath blown a gale all day;
At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the Rover takes his stand;
So dark it is, they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising Moon."

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