"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool," to him I said;

And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor Old Man so long
And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run

So fast out of his heart, I thought

They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds

With coldness still returning.

Alas! the gratitude of men

Has oftener left me mourning.

The NIGHTINGALE.

Written in April, 1798.

No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.
Come, we will rest on this old mossy Bridge !
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently
O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,

A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,

“Most musical, most melancholy *" Bird! A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!

In nature there is nothing melancholy.

-But some night-wandering Man, whose heart was pierced

With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow distemper, or neglected love,

(And so, poor wretch! filled all things with himself,

And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrows) he and such as he

First named these notes a melancholy strain :

* "Most musical, most melancholy." This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy Man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The Author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which none could be more painful to him, except, perhaps, that of having ridiculed his Bible.

And many a poet echoes the conceit;

Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme

When he had better far have stretched his limbs

Beside a brook in mossy

forest-dell

By sun- or moon-light, to the influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful! so his fame
Should share in nature's immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all nature lovelier, and itself
Be loved, like nature!-But 'twill not be so;
And youths and maidens most poetical

Who lose the deep'ning twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still

Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs
O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

My Friend, and my Friend's Sister! we have learnt
A different lore: we may not thus profane

Nature's sweet voices always full of love

And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music! And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge
Which the great lord inhabits not: and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many Nightingales: and far and near

In wood and thicket over the wide grove

They answer and provoke each other's songs-
With skirmish and capricious passagings,

And murmurs musical and swift jug jug

And one low piping sound more sweet than allStirring the air with such an harmony,