The Life-Boat.

MOORE.

IS sweet to behold, when the billows are sleeping,
Some gay-coloured bark moving gracefully by;
No damp on her deck but the even-tide's weeping,
No breath in her sails but the summer-wind's sigh.

Yet who would not turn with a fonder emotion, To gaze on the life-boat, though rugged and worn, Which often hath wafted o'er hills of the ocean, The lost light of hope to the seaman forlorn!

Oh! grant that of those who in life's sunny slumber
Around us like summer-barks idly have played,
When storms are abroad we may find in the number
One friend, like the life-boat, to fly to our aid.

B

To the Daisy.

WORDSWORTH.

RIGHT flower, whose home is everywhere!
A pilgrim bold in 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 wouldst teach him how to find

A shelter under every wind,

A hope for times that are unkind
And every season?

Thou wanderest the wide world about,
Unchecked by pride or scrupulous doubt,
With friends to greet thee, or without,
Yet pleased and willing;

Meek, yielding to occasion's call,

And all things suffering from all,

Thy function apostolical

In peace fulfilling.

A Country Walk.

COWPER.

'ERE 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 stock dove, 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 a while, 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 neighbouring 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.

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit

For human fellowship, as being void