That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good-a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably link’d. While thus he creeps
From door to door, the Villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds
Past deeds and offices of charity,

Else unremember'd, and so keeps alive

The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years,
And that half-wisdom half-experience gives,
Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign
To selfishness and cold oblivious cares.
Among the farms and solitary huts,
Hamlets and thinly-scatter'd villages,
Where'er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,
The mild necessity of use compels

To acts of love; and habit does the work
Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy

Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,
By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued,
Doth find itself insensibly disposed

To virtue and true goodness. Some there are,
By their good works exalted, lofty minds
And meditative, authors of delight

And happiness, which to the end of time

Will live, and spread, and kindle; minds like these,
In childhood, from this solitary Being,
This helpless Wanderer, have perchance received
(A thing more precious far than all that books
Or the solicitudes of love can do!)

That first mild touch of sympathy and thought,
In which they found their kindred with a world

The easy Man,

Where want and sorrow were.
Who sits at his own door,-and, like the pear
Which overhangs his head from the green wall,
Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young,
The prosperous and unthinking, they who live
Shelter'd, and flourish in a little grove

Of their own kindred ;-all behold in him
A silent monitor, which on their minds
Must needs impress a transitory thought
Of self-congratulation, to the heart
Of each recalling his peculiar boons,
His charters and exemptions; and, perchance,
Though he to no one give the fortitude
And circumspection needful to preserve
His present blessings, and to husband up
The respite of the season, he, at least,
And 'tis no vulgar service, makes them felt.

Yet further.

-Many, I believe, there are
Who live a life of virtuous decency,
Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel
No self-reproach; who of the moral law
Establish'd in the land where they abide
Are strict observers; and not negligent,
Meanwhile, in any tenderness of heart

Or act of love to those with whom they dwell,
Their kindred, and the children of their blood.
Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace!
-But of the poor man ask, the abject poor,
Go, and demand of him, if there be here
In this cold abstinence from evil deeds,
And these inevitable charities,

Wherewith to satisfy the human soul?
No-Man is dear to Man; the poorest poor

Long for some moments in a weary life
When they can know and feel that they have been,
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers-out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause,
That we have all of us one human heart.
-Such pleasure is to one kind Being known,
My Neighbour, when with punctual care, each week
Duly as Friday comes, though prest herself
By her own wants, she from her chest of meal
Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip
Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door
Returning with exhilarated heart,

Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.

Then let him pass,-a blessing on his head!
And while in that vast solitude to which
The tide of things has led him, he appears
To breathe and live but for himself alone,
Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about
The good which the benignant law of Heaven
Has hung around him: and, while life is his,
Still let him prompt the unletter'd Villagers
To tender offices and pensive thoughts.

-Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And, long as he can wander, let him breathe
The freshness of the valleys; let his blood
Struggle with frosty air and winter snows;
And let the charter'd wind that sweeps the heath
Beat his grey locks against his wither'd face.
Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness
Gives the last human interest to his heart.
May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY,
Make him a captive! for that pent-up din,

Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,
Be his the natural silence of old age!

JEHOVAH THE PROVIDER.

AUTHOR of being! life-sustaining king!
Lo! Want's dependent eye from thee implores
The seasons, which provide nutritious stores ;
Give to her prayers the renovating spring,
And summer's heats all perfecting, that bring
The fruits which autumn from a thousand shores
Selecteth provident! when earth adores
Her God, and all her vales exulting sing.
Without thy blessing, the submissive steer

Bends to the ploughman's galling yoke in vain ; Without thy blessing on the varied year,

Can the swarth reaper grasp the golden grain! Without thy blessing, all is blank and drear; With it, the joys of Eden bloom again.

SOUTHEY.

THE HOLLY TREE.

O READER! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly Tree?

The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves

Order'd by an intelligence so wise,

As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize:

And in this wisdom of the Holly Tree
Can emblems see

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.

Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,

To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt I know, Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And as,

when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green,

The Holly leaves their fadeless hues display

Less bright than they;

But when the bare and wintry woods we see,

What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree ?