THE LAMBS OF GRASMERE, 1860.

THE upland flocks grew starved and thinned :

Their shepherds scarce could feed the lambs

Whose milkless mothers butted them,

Or who were orphaned of their dams. The lambs athirst for mother's milk

Filled all the place with piteous sounds: Their mothers' bones made white for miles The pastureless wet pasture grounds.

Day after day, night after night,

From lamb to lamb the shepherds went, With teapots for the bleating mouths

Instead of nature's nourishment.

The little shivering gaping things

Soon knew the step that brought them aid,

And fondled the protecting hand,

And rubbed it with a woolly head.

Then, as the days waxed on to weeks,
It was a pretty sight to see

These lambs with frisky heads and tails
Skipping and leaping on the lea,
Bleating in tender, trustful tones,

Resting on rocky crag or mound,

And following the beloved feet

That once had sought for them and found.

These very shepherds of their flocks,
These loving lambs so meek to please,
Are worthy of recording words

And honor in their due degrees :

So I might live a hundred years,

And roam from strand to foreign strand,

Yet not forget this flooded spring

And scarce-saved lambs of Westmoreland.

M

A BIRTHDAY.

Y heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a watered shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,

In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys ;
Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.

REMEMBER.

R

SONNET.

EMEMBER me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more, day by day, You tell me of our future that you planned : Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while. And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

THE

AFTER DEATH.

SONNET.

HE curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may

Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept

And could not hear him; but I heard him say: "Poor child, poor child": and as he turned away Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.

He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:
He did not love me living; but once dead
He pitied me; and very sweet it is

To know he still is warm though I am cold.

3

L

AN END.

OVE, strong as Death, is dead.
Ceme, let us make his bed

Among the dying flowers :
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit

In the quiet evening hours.

He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting:
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For autumn twilight, cold and gray.
Sit we by his grave, and sing

He is gone away,

To few chords and sad and low
Sing we so:

Be our eyes fixed on the grass
Shadow-veiled as the years pass,
While we think of all that was
In the long ago.