XII. TO THE DAISY. BRIGHT Flower! whose home is everywhere, Bold in maternal Nature's care, And all the long year through the heir Of joy or sorrow, Methinks that there abides in thee Some concord with humanity, Given to no other flower I see The forest thorough! Is it that Man is soon deprest? A thoughtless Thing! who, once unblest, Does little on his memory rest, Or on his reason, And Thou would'st teach him how to find A shelter under every wind, A hope for times that are unkind And every season ? Thou wander'st the wide world about, Meek, yielding to the occasion's call, Thy function apostolical 1803. XIII. In the School of MATTHEW. is a tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the Names of the several persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the foundation of the School, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite to one of those Names the Author wrote the following lines. IF Nature, for a favourite child, Read o'er these lines; and then review In such diversity of hue Its history of two hundred years. -When through this little wreck of fame, Has travelled down to Matthew's name, And, if a sleeping tear should wake, Which for himself he had not made. Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er, Far from the chimney's merry roar, The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup -Thou soul of God's best earthly mould! Are all that must remain of thee? 1799. XIV. THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS. WE walked along, while bright and red And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said, "The will of God be done!" A village schoolmaster was he, With hair of glittering grey; As blithe a man as you could see On a spring holiday. And on that morning, through the grass, And by the steaming rills, We travelled merrily, to pass A day among the hills. "Our work," said I, was well begun ; Then, from thy breast what thought, So sad a sigh has brought?" A second time did Matthew stop; Upon the eastern mountain-top, "Yon cloud with that long purple cleft A day like this which I have left And just above yon slope of corn Such colours, and no other, Were in the sky, that April morn, Of this the very brother. With rod and line I sued the sport Which that sweet season gave, And, to the church-yard come, stopped short Beside my daughter's grave. Nine summers had she scarcely seen, The pride of all the vale; And then she sang ;-she would have been A very nightingale. Six feet in earth my Emma lay; And yet I loved her more, For so it seemed, than till that day I e'er had loved before. |