Is to conduct it to the destined inn, · And having dropped the expected bag -pass on.

He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,

Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief

Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to

some,

To him indifferent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks

Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains,

Or nymphs responsive, equally affect His horse and him, unconscious of them all.

But oh the important budget! ushered in With such heart-shaking music, who can say

What are its tidings? have our troops awaked?

Or do they still, as if with opium drugged, Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave?

Is India free? and does she wear her plumed

And jewelled turban with a smile of peace,

Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,

The popular harangue, the tart reply, The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, And the loud laugh-I long to know them all;

I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free,

And give them voice and utterance once again.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And while the bubbling and loud hissing

urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups

That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,

Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed

The piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired.

The learned finger never need explore Thy vigorous pulse; and the unhealthful east,

That breathes the spleen, and searches every bone

Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee. Thy days roll on exempt from household care;

The wagon is thy wife; and the poor beasts

That drag the dull companion to and fro,

Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care.

Ah, treat them kindly! rude as thou appearest,

Yet show that thou hast mercy, which

Thee too, enamored of the life I loved, Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit Determined, and possessing it at last With transports such as favored lovers feel,

I studied, prized, and wished that I had known,

Ingenious Cowley! and though now reclaimed

By modern lights from an erroneous taste,

I cannot but lament thy splendid wit Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools;

I still revere thee, courtly though retired, Though stretched at ease in Chertsey's silent bowers,

Not unemployed, and finding rich amends

For a lost world in solitude and verse.

MEDITATION IN WINTER. [From Book VI. The Winter Walk at Noon.]

THE night was winter in his roughest mood,

The morning sharp and clear. But now

at noon,

And learning wiser grow without his books.

And where the woods fence off the northern blast,

The season smiles, resigning all its rage, And has the warmth of May. The

vault is blue

Without a cloud, and white without a speck

The dazzling splendor of the scene below.

Again the harmony comes o'er the vale, And through the trees I view the embattled tower

Whence all the music. I again perceive

The soothing influence of the wafted strains,

And settle in soft musings as I tread The walk, still verdant, under oaks and

elms,

Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.

The roof, though moveable through all its length

As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed,

And intercepting in their silent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for

me.

No noise is here, or none that hinders

thought.

The redbreast warbles still, but is content With slender notes, and more than half suppressed:

Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light

From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes

From many a twig the pendant drops of ice,

That tinkle in the withered leaves below.

Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,

Charms more than silence. Meditation here

May think down hours to moments. Here the heart

May give a useful lesson to the head,

one,

Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells

In heads replete with thoughts of other men,

Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, The mere materials with which wisdom builds,

Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,

Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;

Wisdom is humble that he knows no

THE POET IN THE WOODS. HERE unmolested, through whatever sign

The sun proceeds, I wander; neither mist,

Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me, Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy. Even in the spring and playtime of the year,

That calls the unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather kingcups in the yellow mead, And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick

A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook,

These shades are all my own. The timorous hare,

Grown so familiar with her frequent

guest,

Scarce shuns me; and the stockdove unalarmed

Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends

His long love-ditty for my near approach. Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm

That age or injury has hollowed deep, Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves

He has outslept the winter, ventures forth

To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun,

The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play.

He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird, Ascends the neighboring beech; there whisks his brush,

And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,

With all the prettiness of feigned alarm, And anger insignificantly fierce.

EPITAPH ON A HARE. HERE lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue,

Nor swifter greyhound follow, Whose foot ne'er tainted morning dew, Nor ear heard huntsman's halloo;

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,

Who, nursed with tender care, And to domestic bounds confined, Was still a wild Jack hare.

Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance every night,
He did it with a jealous look,

And, when he could, would bite.

His diet was of wheaten bread, And milk, and oats, and straw; Thistles, or lettuces instead,

With sand to scour his maw.

On twigs of hawthorn he regaled,
On pippins' russet peel,
And, when his juicy salads failed,
Sliced carrot pleased him well.

A Turkey carpet was his lawn,

Whereon he loved to bound, To skip and gambol like a fawn, And swing his rump around.

His frisking was at evening hours,
For then he lost his fear,
But most before approaching showers,
Or when a storm drew near.

Eight years and five round-rolling

moons

He thus saw steal away, Dozing out all his idle noons,

And every night at play.

I kept him for his humor's sake,
For he would oft beguile

My heart of thoughts that made it ache,

And force me to a smile.

But now beneath this walnut shade
He finds his long last home,
And waits, in snug concealment laid,
Till gentler Puss shall come.

He, still more agèd, feels the shocks,
From which no care can save,
And, partner once of Tiney's box,
Must soon partake his grave.