ASK not the boy, who, when the breeze of morn
First shakes the glitt'ring drops from ev'ry thorn,
Unfolds his flock, then under bank or bush
Sits linking cherry-stones, or platting rush,
How fair is freedom? He was always free.
To carve his rustic name upon a tree,
To snare the mole, or with ill-fashioned hook
To draw th' incautious minnow from the brook,
Are life's prime pleasures in his simple view,
His flock the chief concern he ever knew:
She shines but little in his heedless eyes;
The good we never miss, we rarely prize.

COWPER.

THREE YEARS SHE GREW IN SUN AND SHOWER.

THREE years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown ;

This child I to myself will take,

She shall be mine, and I will make

A lady of my own.

"Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse, and with me

The girl in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.